


The Road To Heaven Bestrewed With Amaranth

by Rinienne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Gen, M/M, Romance, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:10:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 62,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinienne/pseuds/Rinienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her name was Mary. Mary Gabrielle Winchester. After her parents had been killed by Leviathans, she returned back in time to prevent Castiel from opening the Purgatory and freeing them. But it turned to be more difficult than she had expected as the relationship between Dean and Castiel in 2011 weren't exactly the way she used to see in her own timeline and simply telling everything to her fathers would have turned catastrophic.  So yeah... saving the world? Easy! Opening the eyes of one particular angel and one particular hunter on each-other on another hand was a different story.<br/>Set in the middle of season 6 and alternates the end of it, but has spoilers for 7x1 as I started to write this fanfiction after watching it.<br/>PS: This is NOT MPreg! Want to know how Mary appeared in this world? Read!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'ed by:  
> Firts two chapters - Annwyn (LJ name);  
> Third chapter - Mozzarellaroses (LJ name);  
> and the rest by Eridanie.

  


_April 2029_  
The sky above Sioux Falls darkened within seconds and bright flashes of lighting started to tear it apart. Anyone witnessing this particular phenomenon was most likely to brush it off and blame a normal raining season in this part of America, even though it was nearly impossible to miss the big vortex forming above the south west part of the city suburb, which seemed to be the epicenter of the storm.  
  
This storm wasn't like anything seen in ages. Even those aware of what lurked in the dark, those who knew about the darkest side of the world, of the shadows where supernatural creatures, covered by the night, awaited quietly for a prey to come by, even those didn't know what this vortex foretold. This was no demonic omen and no lesser God would have a reason to do something like that.  
  
Clerics claimed that is was God's wrath. Of course, little they knew that God had since long stopped caring or watching upon his creations and children, disappearing without a trace.  
  
“This is going to be so much fun!” A young man in a tan  trench coat  sneered, coming closer to a sign on which was written “Singer’s Auto Salvage”.  
  
A frown suddenly appeared on his face. “Not here for the fun, need the girl,” He pronounced in a gloomy voice.  
  
“But, we can have fun, by killing the others.” A third voice proposed. This one sounded bored, indifferent.  
  
All of the voices came from one single man, whose facial features changed with every one of them. Several more came out of the man, engrossed in their conversation. Nevertheless one of them never managed to reach the man's lips. It was buried deep inside, broken and scared, a lament singing for a hope long gone, repeating several words in a litany it couldn't control: “No, no, please no...”, it was pleading, again and again. But it was useless and its mourning was unheard.  
  
  
 _February 2011_  
Many days had already passed by since the Winchester brothers had gone in a hunt. For some reason, monsters seemed to lay low, as preparing for something big, the well-known quiet before the storm.  
  
And that was exactly what Dean was expecting, considering that their own “Mother” had returned from the depth of Purgatory. Some small hunts could still be found but most of the time they had already been taken care of by other hunters, closer to the monsters' location.  
  
Dean was sitting in his beloved car, listening to music with a phone in his hand. He was waiting for a call from Bobby, hoping somehow that said call would save him from the boredom he was currently drowned into. But the stupid phone had been silent for several hours already.  
The door from the passenger's side opened and his brother climbed into the car, holding a sheet of papers in his hand.  
“Did you find something?” Dean asked his younger brother with hope.  
  
“I found some stuff, but I don’t think it will be useful” Sam admitted.  
  
“How so?”  
  
“Well, first, even after all these hours spent on research, I’m still not sure who or what she is. My first clue was that she was connected to Greek mythology. Have you heard anything about Echidna?”  
  
His older brother glanced at Sam, raising his eyebrow. “Was there anything about it in father’s journal?” He asked.  
  
“No, there wasn’t.”  
  
“So how would I know then?”  
  
“Yeah, Dean, really I wonder... how would you know?” Sam sighed in defeat, giving his older brother a disapproving look. “Anyway, in Greek mythology Echidna is known as the Mother of all monsters. She was half human, with a snake-like tail.” He explained.  
  
“So, this is our case then?” The older brother inquired.  
  
“I’m not so sure, Dean.” Sam shook his head. “It might be, for all I know, but she was also calling herself Eve and Mother of all, not mother of all monsters.”  
  
“So, you think it might be Eve, like from the bible?” Dean asked.  
  
“It might be the same person.” Sam suggested. “It’s not like we never met any creature who happened to be a pagan god and a powerful celestial being at the same time.”  
  
“Anyway, how do we kill the bitch?”  
  
“Dean, I wish I'd know, but unfortunately, no one has ever tried it before.”  
  
The older Winchester sighed, rubbing his face with his palms. All those hours Sam spent in the library researching hadn't brought them closer to their target. Knowing about their monster's origin and history was nice and fancy but Dean didn't care - the only thing he wanted to know was how to kill it and whatever kind of life the creature had before starting the killing spree wasn't going to save innocent people.  
  
That's when his phone buzzed, freeing him from his currently depressing thoughts. Dean glanced at the screen and saw Bobby’s phone number.  
  
“Hey bobby, any news?” He asked.  
  
“Yeah, idjits, I have a huge news for you two! I need you both over here immediately.”  
  
Bobby’s voice was obviously worried but, it seemed, more shocked than scared.  
  
“What happened, Bobby?” Dean asked.  
  
“If I could tell you by phone, I wouldn’t ask you to come, you smartass!” The older hunter snapped before hanging up.  
  
“Geez!” Dean groaned. “It seems Cas is not the only one who needs lessons in proper behavior!”  
  
“What did he want?” Sam asked.  
  
“I wish I knew.” The older hunter sighed. “Looks like we need to return to Bobby’s now.” He added.  
  
Dean turned the key, and the Impala's engine roared and purred in appreciation.

  


***

When they finally arrived at Bobby’s it was already late in the evening. Dean parked the car at its usual spot, near the back door.  
“Hope Bobby's news is not bad news.” Sam sighed before stepping out of the car.  
Dean followed his brother and together they moved towards the door, leading to the kitchen of the older hunter’s house.

They only had time to reach the porch before Bobby appeared in the doorway. The older hunter glanced at the brothers gesturing them to come inside. Dean momently noticed that Bobby, yet again, smelled cheap whiskey, meaning the older hunter had been drinking before they arrived. Of course there wasn't anything unusual in Bobby's drinking on its own but the older hunter drank when he was worried or stressed which meant some disturbing news was probably awaiting them.

“I can't explain, you have to see…” Bobby announced before Dean or Sam had a chance to even open their mouths, then proceeded downstairs, to the basement.

Sam and Dean exchanged confused looks but followed their аoster father down to the panic room.

“Umm, Bobby?” Dean called when they finally reached the anti-supernatural bunker in the basement of the older hunter house. “Who the heck is that?”

Here in the middle of the room, on a bed, was laying a girl. She looked very young, not older than twenty years old, her tanned and freckled face was enframed with long light chestnut hair, spreading over the pillow. She was dressed in a short worn leather jacket those color was something between black and brown with a khaki green shirt underneath and light blue jean pants. Her eyes were closed and she looked asleep.

“I wish I knew the answer” Bobby grunted in annoyance. “But it seems the girl is a hunter. And according to the crap I found in her backpack, a damn good one.”

Upon these words he pointed at the table where Dean noticed a bunch of different objects. Among ever hunter's everyday items such as rock salt, silver knives, holly water and some protective amulets, there also were bottles of something reminding of blood, some sort of bones, herbs and rocks. Dean had no idea what most of them were. But what left him speechless was the silvery angelic blade. Not many hunters knew about angels, and it was safe to say that, even among those, none had ever held such a blade but the three of them.

“And what is she doing here?” Sam inquired.

“A group of hunters found her and brought her here.” Bobby explained.

“And since when your house is a hospital?” Inquired an annoyed Dean.

“They were making researches about recent supernatural activities around. They got her out of the hospital where she had been brought by some civilians, the witnesses claimed that the girl appeared in the middle of the street, out of thin air, then made a few steps and fell unconscious. They contacted Rufus and he brought her here.”

“Ok, her appearance is totally unnatural, but how is that connected to you?” Sam inquired.

“Not exactly to me.” Bobby corrected as he moved closer to the table and retrieved a small card from a backpack which obviously belonged to the girl and passed it to Dean.

The older sibling took the  plastic card  from his friend’s hand and looked at it. The card looked weird, thicker than a usual ID.  
“What the heck?!” He gasped, surprised at the name. “Mary Gabrielle Winchester?”

“Well, it’s weird, alright.” Sam nodded. “But Winchester is a common name. Actually, there's a town named Winchester.”

“Yeah, and all Winchesters in the world have a bad habit to appear out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of people.” Bobby shrugged. “Take a closer look” He instructed.

“Well, it says she was born here, in Sioux Falls, April 11…” Dean froze for a moment, unable to believe his eyes. He read the line several times, just to be sure he really got it right. “In the year of 2012…” He finally announced, eyes leaving the ID card and and looking up, his gaze, full of questions and confused, going several times from Bobby to his brother.


	2. Through Space And Time

_February, 2011;_  
“This is strange.”  Castiel  stated.  
He was standing in the  panic room  beside the bed, glancing down at the girl resting there. When the three hunters realized that they might be dealing with a time  traveler , calling the angel had seemed like a good idea. Of course lately Castiel had rarely been answering any call, explaining it by the fact that Heaven kept him very busy and Dean had no idea if he'd show up this time but, to the hunter’s surprise, Castiel actually did.  
“What is strange?” Bobby inquired.  
“I can’t see through her.” The angel explained. “She seems to be concealed somehow.”  
Castiel placed his hand on the girl’s forehead then moved it down to her celiac plexus. “It looks like she has protection sigils carved on her chest.” He mumbled frowning. “But it’s not what is keeping her hidden to me.”  
“Is there another way to find out then?” Sam asked.  
Castiel turned to the hunters and sighed: “Yes, I can search her from inside.” He nodded.  
Dean raised one  eyebrow , not exactly understanding what the angel meant. Then, realization struck him. “No!” He frowned. “What is with you and digging into human bodies, Cas?” He asked, slightly angry.  
“I wasn’t going to.” Castiel groaned. “You asked for another way and I simply answered your question.”  
“All right then,” Dean sighed. “So, we have a mysterious hunter girl, with our last name on her ID, who appeared out of thin air.” He resumed sarcastically. “Oh, and she is somehow connected with angels. Great” He added.  
“There is something else I can do.” Castiel said suddenly. “You said she had an angel blade, can I take a look at it?”  
“Sure, I guess.” Bobby nodded as he reached for the girl’s backpack. “How will this help ya?”  
“For you, all blades look nearly the same.” The angel started his explanation as he took the sword into his hand. “But they are not, they are infused with a small piece of their owner's grace and it will allow me to…” But Castiel never finished his sentence as his eyes suddenly went wide in surprise. “This cannot be…” He gasped.  
“What is it?” Sam asked, frowning.  
The angel slightly moved his free hand and a second sword materialized. He looked at his blade then back to the one Bobby had handed him. “This sword… it’s mine.”  


***

After Castiel's departure, back to heaven, the three hunters moved to the study room in Bobby’s house. Dean grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge as he passed by the  kitchen  before settling on the couch. He would have never believed this whole story and would have blamed it on a lunatic's delirium if he hadn't experienced time traveling himself before. But Castiel had stated that the sword was his, without any doubt possible, so it was certain that they were in front of someone who just came from a different time. He was also pretty sure that the girl was definitely connected with his family somehow.  
“Who do you think she is?” Sam asked. The younger brother was standing nearby the desk, beside the wall, leaning on it.  
“Maybe it’s your daughter?” Bobby suggested. “Her name is Mary after all, like your mother. Though I doubt any of you would give a kid Gabrielle as her middle name...”  
“If it’s our daughter, so whose exactly?” Sam raised one eyebrow. “Mine or Dean’s?”  
“Does it matter?” Dean grunted, feeling anger rising within. “We won’t be able to know till she wakes up anyway.”  
Dean, of course, had been asking himself the exact same question and something was screaming at him that the girl was definitively his, not his brother's. It wasn't because of the common features they shared, like their hair color or the freckles, or the obvious same taste in clothing, it was something else entirely, a feeling he couldn't explain, he just  **_knew_ ** .  
“All right then,” Bobby sighed, “the girl has been unconscious for two days already and it doesn’t seem like she is going to wake up any time soon, we probably should hit the sack.”  
The older hunter was right, the Winchesters had arrived pretty late and much time had already fled by, spent in useless conversations that led them nowhere. A look at Bobby's clock indicated that it was way past midnight. Bobby rose from his chair and wished them goodnight before disappearing upstairs.  
“Do you want to talk?” Sam inquired, looking at his older brother.  
“What the heck do you want to talk about?” Dean groaned.  
“Well, dunno, you seem pretty upset.” Sam explained.  
“You, again, are trying to have a teenage girl, dramatic, conversation with me? Go to bed already.”  
Upon those words Dean took a last gulp from his bottle and settled it aside on the floor, then ostentatiously shoved his shoes from his feet before fully climbing on the couch, his back turned to Sam. Just a moment later and he heard his brother getting out of the room, turning the lights off before he left.  
The room sank into darkness, only disturbed by a faint moonlight coming from the large window above the couch. Dean grabbed the blanket carefully folded on the elbow of the couch and covered himself with it, closing his eyes. But as expected, sleep refused to come.  
Sam was right, something was really bothering him, even if he had been unwilling to talk about it: if indeed the girl was really his daughter or his niece, how come she had become a hunter? What could have happened in the future, serious enough that he had allowed her to take a gun and hunt monsters, instead of going to school, make friends and live a normal life? And, most importantly, why had she been sent back in their time and by whom? Time seemed to be slowing down as all these thoughts were going through Dean's head. Hundreds of questions but not the slightest answer, yet, without realizing it, sleep began its work on his oppressed mind and he started to fall into a dreamless sleep.

 

***

Dean was awoken by the familiar smell of fresh coffee and bacon, bringing saliva to his lips.  He opened his eyes and glanced at the clock – it was only seven AM so, most likely, it was Bobby who, already up at this early hour, had decided to make breakfast for everyone. Dean smiled lazily as he got up from the couch and made his way to the kitchen.   
But his smile quickly disappeared from his face as he saw the girl standing before the kitchen's stove, frying bacon on a pan. She had heard Dean coming and turned her head towards him, her unbelievably blue eyes showing nothing but pure happiness and fascination.   
“You woke up!” She said, as a huge smile brightened up her face.   
“I… umm…” Dean only mumbled, looking at her from head to toe.   
The girl had obviously changed clothes. She was now wearing a black shirt and a pair of dark jeans, both of them way too big for her slim body and suspiciously looking like Dean's. On second glance, the hunter realized that those were definitively his clothes.   
The girl followed his gaze and looked down at herself.   
“Oh, I borrowed it from the dryer, down there in the basement. I needed something to change after showering, my clothes were dirty.” She said, as it was the most natural thing to do. Dean also noticed that her hair was wet.   
“You went through our stuff?” He couldn't believe it, “…without asking for permission?”   
“First, you were also digging in my bag, and second – well, everyone was still asleep and I felt all sticky.” She winced.   
Dean opened his mouth but couldn’t find proper words. It seemed the girl was totally uninhibited. He should have been supposed to disagree and to be at least a little angry with her, but she looked so happy, all this ‘glowing from inside’ nonsense. Here she was, standing motionless, looking at him with adoration on her face, as he was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen in her life.   
“You… you’re so… adorable!” She finally announced.   
“Umm… thanks… I guess.” Dean replied. He was actually used to various compliments from women, but this one sounded so innocent, without any seductive undertone. “Bacon…” He added looking behind the girl.   
Mary frowned and tilted her head. Dean's heart jumped in his chest at the gesture, so familiar and endearing. He had already seen it somewhere before, but couldn’t quite remember where exactly.   
“Bacon, I think it’s burning.” He explained.   
The girl turned back to the stove and inhaled loudly in surprise. “Crap!” She swore and for some reasons, those crude words sounded alien coming from her mouth. Dean felt an urge to admonish her for it, but decided to remain silent, as it certainly would be a weird thing to do.   
“Not again!” She sighed in annoyance, placing half burned bacon slices on a plate.   
Dean moved to the table, settling himself on a chair. “So, Mary… maybe now is time for some explanations?” He asked.   
“Maybe breakfast first?”   
“Seriously?”   
“When do you ever choose stories over food?” She laughed.   
“So, you know me so well?” Dean surprised.   
“It appears so.”   
She poured some coffee in a cup and placed it before the hunter, along with a plate of fried eggs and slightly burned bacon. Dean dug into his meal with an appreciative hum. It wasn’t good nor bad, all in all it was a very simple breakfast but last night he had gone to bed on an empty stomach and said stomach was now delighted to finally get something to digest.   
Halfway through his breakfast was when Bobby decided to appear.   
“I won't even make a comment.” He groaned.   
Mary turned and looked at the other hunter. Her face switched from happiness to surprise, then to shock, before settling back on happiness. “Oh my…” she gasped. “Bobby!” And she suddenly rushed towards the older man and embraced him into a tight hug, resulting in a Bobby frozen where he stood, eyes wide opened in shock.   
“It’s not like I mind pretty ladies hugging me…” He finally mumbled when speech returned to him.   
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Mary apologized. “I am just… too excited.” She explained.   
Dean noticed that the older hunter was looking at the girl with distrust. Dean perfectly knew that Bobby had performed every possible test on her to ensure she wasn't a monster but then again, the older hunter was kind of paranoid when it came to safety. Who was Dean to blame him for that?   
“She made breakfast!” He said with enthusiasm, clearly trying to cheer up the atmosphere.   
  


***

When Sam finally appeared in the kitchen, he collided with yet another hug from Mary; apparently the girl had some sort of otherworldly fondness for hugging everyone but Dean.  He tried to brush it away, but the more time went by, spent in mundane conversations, the more nervous Dean felt.   
To him, it seemed that Mary was trying to buy the most time she could and it could only mean two things: either she simply was a liar, pretending to be their friend and relative, either something of the ‘really big and ugly’ kind was awaiting them in the future, ‘big and ugly’ enough to send someone back in time. Both options seemed unpleasant, to say the least, but, truth be told, Dean wasn't sure what scared him the most. He couldn't deny feeling drawn towards the girl, some fatherly hunch, a strange need to protect her. He had felt the same for his younger brother or for Ben. And would the girl happen to be nothing but a liar, maybe a spy, Dean knew it would hurt.   
The other option seemed easier to handle. Something bad must have happened in the future and the girl had been sent to fix it. And it filled him with hope, although his own time spent in ‘traveling back to change the future’ had been nothing but failures. What did he manage to fix back? Nothing.   
“Maybe it's time to end this nice and cozy talk and move to the most important topic?” Bobby proposed as they finished their meal, moving to the study.   
“Well…” The girl started. “I think you already have a clue about my identity.”   
“Yeah,” Sam nodded, “Whose are you?” He asked.   
Mary looked at the three hunters but in the end, her gaze remained on Dean, giving the older brother a good guess at the answer, but as their eyes met, Dean's heart seemed to stop for a moment.   
“Dean is my father.” Mary sighed, not removing her bright blue eyes from the older brother. And seriously? A name should be created just for this shade of blue.   
“Great.” Dean nodded. “Glad I was thrown into the same situation or I would never have believed you.” He admitted.   
“Believe me, you have never been thrown into that.” She sighed and her smile suddenly vanished from her face. The change was so severe and she suddenly seemed like a total other person. “I did not only arrive from the future, but from an alternative universe as well” She started.   
“What do you mean? Now you're telling us that parallel words do exist?” Bobby gasped.   
“No… not exactly. It’s difficult to explain, but time is not a straight line, it's more like a web. Every day, you do things that, little as they are, can change the future. It's like being on the road and facing a fork. If you choose to go left, it doesn't mean the right path doesn't exist or get erased. The right path is still here, living and developing on its own”. She was trying to explain, drawing lines in the air with her fingers. “Moving through time is actually pretty easy when all you have to do is go back and forward on a straight line, but it's nearly impossible to go back in time and into another reality at the same time.”   
“But you did?” Sam inquired. “Who sent you here?”   
Mary sighed, glancing at the floor. “Castiel did.” She said after a pause. “But even for him, it was nearly impossible. My own soul has been drained severely; there was a great chance I wouldn't survive.”   
“Typical…” Dean groaned. “Risking people's life for ‘the greater good’”.   
Mary’s face changed once again, her eyes now filled with shock, for a second she looked like about to cry. “If it makes you feel better, he died.” She closed her eyes. “As you did…”   
Something pierced Dean's heart as he heard Mary's words, leaving him empty. He wasn't sure what caused this void within, hearing about his own death? Hurting his own daughter? “I’m… sorry.” He said quietly.   
“It’s all right.” Mary finally sighed after a moment of silence. “Actually, this is why I’m here.”   
“Wait, you said that you came from a parallel universe, but how changing something here will affect time in your universe?” Sam asked.   
“The… thing which came and killed my family… it came from here.” She explained. “It was powerful enough, to travel easily, not only through time and space, but through parallels.”   
“Wait.” Dean exclaimed. “Could this thing have followed you here?”   
“No, I doubt it. Right now I’m in safe spot, a time where it hasn't been created yet. At least here.”   
If Dean had a hard time understanding Mary so far, now he was utterly lost. He glanced at Sam, searching for help, but his own brother seemed to be totally lost as well.   
“I know, it’s difficult to understand, and it’s difficult to explain, but I already changed my own time and universe, by simply dropping here. I alternated your history here and now, because I'm here, but in this specific past and specific universe, this thing doesn’t yet exist. And it really should stay this way.”   
“All right, and what is this thing exactly?” Bobby asked.   
“Have you already heard anything about Purgatory?” Mary asked.   
The three of them glanced at each other in surprise.   
“Yeah,” Dean nodded, “A demon named Crowley tried to find it. And now, there's this Mother of all.”   
“All right then. The thing, or more likely things, that came to my world were unleashed from Purgatory. That is why the door should never be opened.”   
“Can’t agree more with you on that one.” Dean smirked.   
“And what are we supposed to do?” asked Sam.   
“First, we will need to kill Eve. Second – we will need to defeat Raphael. Well, I think that'll do it.”   
“Wow, I love this plan. Sounds so easy... Fly to Kryptonia and back. Maybe on our way we could convince young Anakin Skywalker to say screw you the dark side. Easy”. The older Winchester joked.   
“Not sure about Kryptonia, but I'd like to give a shot at Anakin.” Mary smiled. “Anyway, trust me, you really want Raphael out of the game to prevent Purgatory's doors to open.”   
“Yeah, Cas is working on this little detail right now.” Dean nodded with a note of sarcasm in his voice.   
“I don’t understand.” Mary frowned. “Is it some kind of joke to you? I’m not talking about computer games or movies. I’m talking about millions of lives. Your life as well by the way. And Cas’.”   
Of course Dean understood. But he had tried to ask Castiel so many times about this civil war in Heaven but the bastard had remained silent. And right now, Mary was talking about him as if he was the only one who mattered to her. As if Castiel was her father, not Dean. And it wasn't like Dean had stopped to like the nerd angel since his return to ‘the dicks up above’, apparently new and improved. Cas was still his friend, his best friend, in fact he was like a second brother to Dean and the hunter really thought he would die for him but the angel had behaved in a weird way lately, it seems that something drastic had changed after the year Dean had spent with Ben and Lisa.   
“What's with you and your Cas’ obsession by the way?” Bobby asked, as if he had just read Dean’s mind.   
“Obsession?” Mary seemed genuinely surprised. “I don’t have any obsessions, thank you!” She protested, but Dean didn't miss that the girl blushed.   
Dean raised one eyebrow. He knew that angels weren’t aging and, in her time, Castiel was probably looking exactly the same as right now. So could it be that there was something between those two? And anger suddenly arose again from within, leaving Dean clueless about said anger. After all, Castiel was probably the only one he would trust with his own daughter, so what was wrong? Maybe because Mary looked so young? Maybe because it was just natural for every father to feel this way towards their daughter's crush?   
“Anyway,” Mary went on, “There are ways. I'll just need you to return me everything you took from me.” She glanced at Bobby. “I mean the black box.” She added.   
“What is in it?” The older hunter inquired.   
“Nothing dangerous…” The girl smiled. “I just put some private stuff in it, knowing that you wouldn’t open it.”   
“Smart ass…” Bobby nodded as he opened a drawer of his table and retrieved a black box, covered in different protective sigils.   
Dean had actually already seen a similar box; it was used to seal dangerous cursed items, like the rabbit foot they once had to take care of. Mary had been really smart in guessing they wouldn't dare to open such a heavily sealed box, guessing the three of them would have assumed it would contain something absolutely not to mess with.   
Bobby passed the box to the girl and she opened it without any hesitation. The hunter couldn’t see what was laid inside, as Mary was actually trying to hide it. Then she retrieved the item that had been hiding there, which disturbingly looked like their father's journal, but made from what seemed lighter leather and decorated with a golden colored metal.   
“Here I have some ideas about defeating Raphael.” She smiled widely as she opened the journal.   
Dean moved closer to his daughter and glanced to the journal over her shoulder. “What the heck?” He gasped in surprise: the thick looking journal wasn't written in English, but in a language those symbols he was pretty familiar with, although he couldn’t read or speak said language - Enochian.


	3. Amaranth

_February, 2011;_  
Of all the places in the world, Dean had obviously never expected to find himself in a mall, shopping for  female clothes . It wasn’t like he’d never been in malls shopping for  clothes , but all the time it was way quicker than this. Usually Dean would have visited one store with something very cheap, quickly grabbed a pair or two of jeans and several  shirts , and then he would have tried them on himself before moving to the cashier. But there probably was something different in buying clothes for a seventeen year old girl – the whole process looked more like some sort of a ceremony, not shopping.  
They had already spent about a whole hour in the mall, and Mary was able to choose only one pair of jeans she liked. They were moving from one store to another where the girl was choosing a bunch of different stuff, most of which she simply didn’t like after trying and the ones she liked, she wasn’t buying simply because she thought that she might find something even better in another store.  
The older Winchester would probably question himself how had he ended here, but the answer to this question was pretty obvious: after all Mary told him, Bobby still had a bunch of doubts.  
“I think there’s something she’s hiding,” the older hunter had told him.  
After Mary had finished her story, he had excused himself and called the two brothers to the kitchen, leaving the girl in the study as he wanted to talk to the brothers alone.  
“Oh, come on,” Dean had protested. “She traveled to another dimension, after losing her entire family. Maybe she’s like this, because, oh, I dunno,  _she’s in grief_ ?”  
“She doesn’t look much like she’s in grief,” Sam had sighed.  
“Because she has a hope?” Dean didn’t stop.  
“Anyway, boys. We need to be careful here, watch her close,” Bobby advised.  
Of course Dean perfectly understood that Bobby had a point in his distrust and of course he didn’t want to simply relax around the girl or trust her with every secret he had, but he also had some sort of inner feeling, an  intuition  about her which was telling the older Winchester different things. Mary was his blood, his family, and the fact Castiel himself gave her his own sword, sending her back in time, was proof enough for Dean.  
But on the other hand, Mary never shared the plan for killing Raphael she had been talking about. She simply said that she had some ideas according to the journal Castiel had given her, but she never shared them, never gave them the chance to take a closer look at the book.  
Dean was curious. He wanted to shove it aback, trying to convince himself that Mary had reasons in doing so, but it turned out to be very difficult. Also, it appeared that Bobby and Sam were very interested in reading the journal, but they faced several difficulties here. First was that Mary asked them not to do it, because it could simply be dangerous to play with such knowledge of their own future,  and second – it had been written in Enochian, and unfortunately for three hunters there weren’t any good Enochian dictionaries in the world to translate the journal fully. They had tried to call Castiel again, but the angel never appeared.  
The three hunters were about to simply drop the idea, but Mary had suddenly mentioned that the journal had been written not simply in angels’ language, but by Castiel himself and, most surprising, she had asked them not to tell a single word to the angel himself about it. The older Winchester may have not been too much upset in keeping something like that in secret from his friend, but the level of his curiosity started to grow in geometric progression.  
Dean would have never admitted this fact to anyone else, but suddenly he found himself wondering what Castiel could have written in this journal. Could there be anything the angel had written about him? And if yes, what could he tell? How Castiel saw the hunter, what he thought about him? All those thoughts were sending small shivers down Dean’s back, making him excited and uncomfortable at the same time.  
And then, when Mary asked to go somewhere to get her some clothes as she had only one set, Sam got an idea. Several hours ago the girl had hidden the box with all private stuff in the house somewhere, because it was too heavy to carry around, so if Dean would distract her for several hours, they would have the chance to find the box and take a look at the journal, together with all other stuff she was hiding there. Of cause they wouldn’t be able to read anything or translate anything in several hours, but they definitely could make scans or photocopies. And that what exactly how Dean ended here, with his yet unborn in this time parallel daughter, shopping for clothes.  
“Hey, dad, check this out!” Mary smiled wide as she exited the changing room.  
Now she was dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans and a light  gray shirt , totally simple at the first glance. Then she turned her back, showing the picture on the other side of the shirt: on its back, there were two silver wings and the word “Angel” written in white. Dean raised his eyebrows, not quite understanding what his daughter wanted to say with this shirt.  
“It looks like the one Balthazar once got me,” she explained.  
“Balthazar? What the heck?” The hunter surprised. “Since when did Balthazar start buying you stuff? Last time I checked, he’s a total douche.”  
“Ah, you’re not yet friendly with him?” The girl nodded in understanding. “He’s actually always been very nice to our family.”  
“Well, it’s pretty difficult to imagine.” Dean groaned. “How many angels do you know?”  
“Not many, actually,” Mary replied. “Castiel, he’s… um, sticking around. Balthazar never liked you much, but he cares a lot about Cas. Then Rachel, I saw her once or twice – she’s pretty grumpy. Plus several more, but I don’t know them close.”  
“Yeah, great…” Dean sighed. For some reasons the mention of angels made him angry again. Dean had never minded for Castiel to visit them from time to time if he would ever get a normal family; in fact, the hunter was very upset when the angel disappeared for a whole year when he had been living with Lisa. Castiel could have at least appeared for a moment to say hello, but he never did. And now he just found out that one day he would actually get a family, but not exactly the one he had always been dreaming of. Besides the fact his own daughter would become a hunter, the stupid angels would continue to dig their noses in his life. But nevertheless he found himself wondering how his family looked like, or  **_would_ **  look like as it had never happened yet. And the thought led to a very reasonable question.  
“Umm… Mary.” He suddenly started looking into girl’s blue eyes. “Can you at least answer one of my questions?”  
“It will depend.” She nodded.  
“Kids don’t exactly come from only one parent, you know.”  
“Yeah, I have an idea where they come from.” She nodded. “And no, I’m not gonna tell you who my mother is.” She laughed before Dean was even able to open his mouth to continue. “Oh! Look! They sell cotton candies in the store over there!” She pointed to the direction of the exit, where on another side was a store with sweets. “Haven’t gotten those since I was ten!” She then hurried to the cashiers to pay for the clothes, not even taking them off. By some miracle she convinced the seller lady to check the clothes right on her, climbing on the table to get easier access. The girl was totally uninhibited, not only around her family, it seemed.  
Buying a cotton candy was so uncomfortable for the hunter that he was sure he was standing there blushing. It wasn’t even connected with the process of buying something so childish, but with the fact that Mary yet again had called him dad. Right now Dean was older than his own daughter by sixteen years, but it looked not more than ten, so seeing them together, people would first of all assume they were a couple or siblings.  
The girl behind the counter looked at the older Winchester with disgust, but didn’t say anything. Dean smiled lazily, paying for the candy, before rushing out from the store.  
“Mary, seriously, stopdoingthat!” he groaned.  
“Do what?” she asked.  
“Calling me dad. People are getting wrong ideas,” the older Winchester explained.  
The girl glanced at Dean with amusement and then just nodded. “Yeah, ok, I understand,” she said. “Sorry, I guess it’s just a habit.”  
  


***

Dean had been waiting on the call from Sam, which would indicate that their part of the job had been done and Dean could simply grab the girl and return home, but the stupid phone was silent.  
If Dean was sure that their little adventure couldn’t turn any more stupid, he soon realized that he was wrong.  
They were sitting in a cafe, getting lunch, when the air around shifted and with a gust of wind Castiel appeared next to the hunter.  
“Hello, Dean,” he said.  
Dean nearly jumped out of his seat out of surprise, but the last moment was able to stop himself from doing it. “Dammit, Cas!” He exhaled. “Stop doing that!” The hunter glanced around, but for his surprise it seemed like no one in the café noticed the weird arrival.  
Dean turned his head back and now realized that the angel was staring at Mary, examining her. Mary in her turn was staring at Castiel with her usual fascination. Dean even shifted uncomfortably because of the fact that Castiel and his daughter decided to create some sort of a staring contest. The weave of anger enveloped him once again.  
“Hey… Cas!” Mary finally pronounced.  
“How are you doing it?” Castiel frowned instead of greeting her back. His facial expression was indicating surprise and frustration at the same time.  
“Doing what?” the girl asked.  
“You’re blocking me somehow, not allowing me to read you,” the angel explained.  
“Ah, that!” Mary smirked, sipping her cola, “I used to believe it was my distracting smile.”  
The hunter suddenly chuckled as the girl right now reminded him of himself a little, although he was thankful the joke didn’t get any sexual context.  
“Stop it,” the angel warned, the surprise on his face starting to turn into anger.  
“Oh, come on. If I’m doing it, there must be reason for it, right?” Mary wasn’t letting her eyes down from the angel’s like she was trying to challenge him.  
The air around started to get uncomfortable. It seemed like five more minutes and the two of them would start to shoot lightning from their eyes.  
  
  
“Ok guys, relax.” Dean finally decided to interrupt this weird situation and placed his hand on the angel’s shoulder. Castiel tensed under his touch, but less than a second relaxed, finally moving his gaze from the girl. “This is Mary, my daughter,” Dean introduced, and suddenly felt Castiel tense again. Only now he realized that his hand was still on Castiel’s shoulder and he hurried to take it away before someone could notice how inappropriately long it had been there.  
“Your daughter?” the angel said, surprised. He lowered his glance to own hands and fixed it there for a moment, like he was thinking about something. “I see…” he finally said, his voice deeper than usual. “My apologies then, I need to go now.”  
“Oh come on, man! You dropped in here only to…” But Dean didn’t get a chance to finish his phrase as the angel had been already gone. “…disappear?” He said to an empty spot. “What the hell is wrong with him?”  
Mary smirked but didn’t say anything as she took another sip from her cup and turned her head towards the window. Silence around two of them started to become annoying, but Dean had no idea what they could talk about. Of course he was still very intrigued about his own future, but it didn’t seem that the girl would tell him anything else by herself.  
“How are you really doing it?” Dean finally asked.  
“Blocking myself from the angels?” she specified. “I told the truth, I was practicing from childhood. You and Cas thought it was necessary for my safety.”  
“I see.” The hunter nodded. “Can you teach me?”  
Mary glanced at him with surprise. “I… umm, don’t know how,” she admitted. “Maybe you should ask Cas?”  
“Nah, his time it too precious for that.” He smirked sarcastically.  
“I see…” Mary nodded. The silence hung above them again, but this time it was disturbed by Mary’s question. “Why are you so cold to each other?” she asked.  
“Cold?” Dean surprised. “Did you see his behavior? He’s like mister ‘I totally don’t care’ lately.”  
“Why won’t you try to talk to him?”  
“Easier said than done. I’ve tried, but he’s about as talkative as a fish. Like you, actually. It seems like people around me just like to keep secrets.” Dean sighed. “Anyway, why would you care?”  
“Me? I… I dunno…” Mary blushed again a little. “It’s just, you two used to be… friendlier towards each other in my time,” she explained  
Dean started to feel a little bit awkward about the whole conversation, because he really didn’t like where it was going. He felt like Mary was about to ask his permission to date or something like that, but he really wasn’t ready for this. For his relief Mary didn’t say anything else. Another minute and the waitress finally brought their orders. As it turned out, Mary had a lot of in common with her father, and her great appetite and taste in food was one of those things. Dean smirked at this, feeling actually pleased that he wouldn’t listen to lections about healthy nourishment at least from own daughter. The rest of the lunch they spent again in silence, but at least now the hunter could distract himself with a very tasty bacon cheeseburger and French fries.  
When they nearly finished with the food, Dean’s cell phone finally rang and the older Winchester hurried to answer it.  
“Dean, well, we found the box,” Sam announced.  
“Alright, you think we should start getting back?” the hunter asked with hope.  
“Yeah, you should. Unless you want to spend some more time together. You know, family bonding.” Sam smirked.  
“Oh, very funny!” Dean winced. He really wanted to add ‘bitch’ after the last phrase, but caught himself before his lips had a chance to form the letter ‘b’. The hunter decided that would be highly inappropriate to use such words in front of his own daughter. The year spent with Ben and Lisa definitely had some influence on the hunter.  
“Anyway, it was useless. We found the box, spent quite some time to figure how to open it without breaking, but it was empty.” The younger brother sighed. “The girl isn’t stupid.”  
“Well, yeah, I guess.” Dean smiled.  
From one side he was a little upset that his curiosity wasn’t going to be satisfied for now, but from another side he felt somewhat proud that his daughter tricked them so easily. The girl definitely could use her brains. “Ok Sammy, talk to you later.” Dean smiled and hanged up the phone.  
Right after this moment Mary suddenly busted out a laugh. “So, your team has failed the quest?” she asked.  
Dean mimicked her smile, mocking it, but didn’t comment anything.  
  


***

Dean wasn’t quite sure how the thing that happened after they left the café actually happened. It was like one moment he was moving to the door of the driver seat and next moment he found himself agreeing to let Mary drive. It wasn’t a spell, it wasn’t stupidity but he still wasn’t sure why he did it. Mary had promised to tell him one single thing about his future family and he simply agreed to it. The most interesting thing was that Dean wasn’t even too much against it, especially with the fact it was his daughter and she had been taught to drive by the hunter himself. She even had another bunch of keys similar to Dean’s.  
Before starting the engine, Mary opened her bag and extracted a small mp3 player from it, making Dean groan in annoyance.  
“All right!” She smiled. “House rule. Driver picks the music… Well, you know how to finish.”  
“Great, can’t believe I actually agreed to that.” Dean sighed. “Is it Sam’s player?” he asked, glancing at the white iPod in the girl’s hand.  
“Yeah, it’s a very old model, but it was the only thing I could take here that would work in this year… without robbing a museum of course.”  
The Impala unfortunately had already had the right port for this filthy mechanism Sam used to call a player and Mary had no difficulties figuring out how to connect them, like she used to do it before. And well, it looked like she really did.  
“I will throw my own rule out of the window if the music you listen to is the same as my brother’s.” Dean warned, hearing the familiar roar of the engine as Mary turned the key.  
The impala slowly moved as the girl pushed the pedal while the first song started to play.  
The music was surprisingly good to the hunter’s ear. It was metal, but not too heavy as it was mixed with some sort of piano accompaniment. It wasn’t something Dean would listen by himself, but at least he didn’t want to throw the damn thing away. To tell the truth Dean actually found himself enjoying it a little. But then, when a medium talented girl started to sing, he realized how wrong he was.  
  
  
 _Under the midnight sun  
Beyond the pearly gates  
Where darkness cloaks the earth  
And souls choose their fate  
  
Eden falls  
Angels call  
Serpents prey  
  
A raven’s song  
From dusk till dawn  
The end awaits._  
  
“What the heck is this?” he asked angrily.  
“HolyHell – Prophecy,” Mary answered with a smile.  
“HolyHell? Seriously?” Dean asked, amused. “Who in their right mind would call a band something like that?”  
Dean tried to listen to more of the song, but the lyrics didn’t make any sense, it was stupid, meaningless, without any visible attempt to add any real feeling in it. Dean tried not to listen to the words as the music itself was really ok. But when the same girl started to sing some shit about the Apocalypse, Horsemen and fallen angels from Hell, he realized his patience wasn’t endless. It was like all those songs were trying to offend him somehow as the singer absolutely had no idea what she was singing about.  
“If you don’t stop it now, it’s going out the window,” Dean warned.  
Mary sighed and pushed the button on the player, trying to switch to another band. Although the next band was also turned down pretty quickly as Dean heard the first several lines of the song. It was something about a sparkling angel the girl believed in and who also was her savior or something like that.  
“Next!” he groaned. Mary switched the track once again, but yet again the song didn’t satisfy Dean. “All right, pull over, I’m revoking driving privileges.”  
“One last chance?” Mary asked, trying to pull the best puppy eyes she only could.  
Dean had no idea why, but he simply nodded. Apparently there was something in those eyes of hers—they were so blue. Dean was sure he had seen those eyes somewhere before but he couldn’t remember. He tried to recollect every woman he more or less knew if they had those eyes, but it was nearly impossible. Damn it, this really could happen if he wasn’t careful enough during one of his one night stands and the girl got pregnant. Maybe that was why Mary didn’t want to tell him anything, because his family had been built around an accidental pregnancy? What kind of happiness could have in such a family? But on the other hand the girl had been born in 2012, so it was like a year and a half from this. Dean’s head started to ache slightly in his attempt to figure it out.  
“Do you know Amaranth?” Mary suddenly asked interrupted hunter’s thoughts.  
“No, what is it? An animal?” Dean replied.  
Mary chuckled and shook her head. “No, it’s a flower,” she corrected. “It symbolizes purity and loyalty. Here, I actually wanted to let you listen to this one, because it reminds me of a person we both know.”  
She pushed another button and the music started to play. Dean wa actually surprised how good it sounded, and again, it wasn’t something he would listen to, but he knew enough about music, he could see when it was a beginner’s attempt to compose a melody and when it was actually a professional play of people who spent many years developing their skills. And this one was really written by the second type. The singer was yet again female but Dean decided to give it a try anyway.  
  
  
 _Baptised with a perfect name  
The doubting one by heart  
Alone without himself  
  
War between him and the day  
Need someone to blame  
In the end, little he can do alone._  
  
Dean even raised his eyebrows as he totally expected this to be yet another meaningless song about something normal people shouldn’t care about, but these lyrics actually had a concept, there actually was an attempt to give out some sort of a message to the listeners.  
  
 _You believe but what you see?  
You receive but what you give?  
  
Caress the one, the Never-Fading rain in your heart  
\- the tears of snow-white sorrow  
Caress the one, the hiding amaranth  
In a land of the daybreak._  
  
The hunter was trying to listen to the song and figure out what Mary meant by ‘reminds me of a person we both know’. He could say that there really was something about him, like his thoughts about how little he could achieve alone, about how he saw so much pain in the world, but still refused to stop believing, but other parts weren’t really fitting. To tell the truth, Dean really had difficulties imagining who Mary really meant.  
  
 _Apart from the wandering pack  
In this brief flight of time  
we reach For the ones who ever dare._  
  
This line, though, could fit anyone, even Bobby. And Castiel as well. This line seemed to fit the whole team, it was even saying ‘we’ and not ‘he’.  
  
 _Reachin', searchin' for something untouched  
Hearing voices of the Never-Fading callin'  
Callin'...Callin'_  
  
Dean sighed as the song slowly started to fade. Mary turned the music off and the car suddenly filled with pressuring silence. Dean’s head was still trying to figure out what this was about, but soon he gave up. Maybe this song fit someone he knew, but it wasn’t him. Or maybe it was all just Mary’s imagination and the song was just a song. Yes, it wasn’t bad, yes it was nicely written, but if so, the message was really buried too deep for Dean’s mind and he was too lazy to dig into it.  
“So, what was the thing about our family you promised to tell me after all this suffering?” Dean finally asked when they nearly arrived at Bobby’s.  
Mary glanced at him once again and smiled. “Yes, we were,” she said simply  
“We were what?” the hunter inquired.  
“Happy.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Used song lyrics:  
> HolyHell - "Prophesy"  
> Nightwish - "Amaranth"


	4. I'm More Than You Know

_ March, 2011; _   
It had already been one week since Mary had been staying with the two brothers and Bobby. She still hadn't told them anything important about Purgatory or Raphael, explaining that the time had not yet come. With every passing day Dean felt more and more suspicious about the whole situation. He’d already started to think that maybe he shouldn’t have trusted the girl as much as he did, but he  couldn't  do anything about it yet. Of course, they could simply tie her up and start asking direct questions, but that didn’t exactly seem like a good way to deal with the situation.   
  
The monsters were quiet during the week, but all hell broke loose again when dozens of supernatural killings all over the country, most of them so weird that even Bobby had to admit that he had never seen anything like them before, had popped up. That was the time that Mary actually started talking business. She explained that it was something only slightly mentioned in Castiel’s journal since he had never participated in the investigation, but the lines in the journal had  made it clear that Eve herself was responsible for the murders.   
  
Dean was pacing in the study, trying to figure out their next course of action while he was waiting for his brother to finish talking to Gwen. He’d found out the place Eve was trying to lure them to was nothing but another trap which would end in the death of several good hunters. To tell the truth, Dean didn’t give a shit about Samuel, after what he had done, but Gwen and Rufus were another story. It not like they were on good terms with those two, but they were good hunters. Rufus had once saved Bobby’s life and was his friend in the past, even if right now they barely talked to each-other and Gwen… well, it was Gwen, who had never done anything wrong, not to the Winchesters, not to anyone else.   
  
“Well, she said that she’ll try to stay away from this thing, but she can’t promise,” Sam announced as he returned from the kitchen with a phone in his hand. “But I seriously doubt it, because Samuel will never listen to us, and he’s the only person she’s got. If he says let’s go, I don’t think she’ll be able to leave him behind,” Sam admitted.   
  
“Yeah, maybe Samuel turned out to be a total dick, but I feel really sorry for the girl.” Dean sighed. “Hey Bobby, anything on your side?” he asked as he saw the older hunter appearing in the study from another exit.   
  
“Rufus promised that he won’t show his nose anywhere near Sandusky,” Bobby replied.   
  
“You don’t seem too sure?” Dean inquired.   
  
“Knowing that son of a bitch …” The older hunter sighed. “I bet that even if he considered my words, he would rush over there changing his mind the last moment.”   
  
“So, I guess we’ll have to go there anyway?” Sam inquired.   
  
“Of course we do, even if we were sure that those idiots would listen to us.” Dean groaned. “Innocent people are dying!”   
“But Dean, it’s a trap!” Mary protested. At least she’d started to call him by name.   
  
“Yes, I know, but this time we’re going to be prepared!” Dean argued. “We know what kind of creature it is, we know that electricity is its weak point. We can actually change something!”   
  
“Alright,” Mary nodded, “but I’m going with you.”   
  
Dean glanced at his daughter with surprise. He knew she was a hunter, but how much experience could she have at her age? “Oh, hell no!” he protested. “You aren’t going anywhere!”   
  
“And why are you deciding for me?” she asked, piercing the hunter with a hateful look.   
  
“Maybe ‘cause I’m your father?” Dean sneered.   
  
“I wasn’t even born in this time period,” she protested.   
  
“All right, then maybe because it’s three of us and we can lock you in the panic room, then?” Dean suggested.   
  
Mary looked at him with her mouth open then glanced at Sam and Bobby, but the two other hunters moved closer to Dean, demonstrating which side they were on. There wasn’t anything else for the girl to do but sigh in defeat. “All right,” she nodded, “do whatever you want.” With those words she got up from the couch and left the study, showing demonstratively how much she disagreed with every muscle on her face.   
  
Dean knew that he was being a little bit harsh with Mary, but she wasn’t so stupid that she wouldn’t understand that he was doing it for her sake. “All right, guys, I think we need to get going to get to Sandusky in time. It’s not a short trip.” He clapped his hands as he said it and moved to the corridor, to the staircase leading to the basement.   
  
“Why don’t I have a good feeling about this?” Sam sighed, addressing Bobby since they were the only two left in the study.   
“Yeah, and you expected to feel great about going straight into a trap?”

***

The road to Sandusky took them the whole day. Dean decided not to stop for longer than ten minutes on the gas stations, just enough time to grab something to eat or visit a restroom. He knew that they were at a pace where they’d get to town in time, but he couldn’t stop himself. If there were any single chance to prevent more innocent people from dying, he really wanted to take it. The hunter decided to consider this situation the same way he did all other hunts he’s been on, even if this time it really was different. For the first time they didn’t need to talk to any witnesses because they already knew exactly where the creature was and what kind of danger it could present.   
  
“What do you think our chances are?” Sam asked. He was leaning on the door and glancing in the window. The younger brother seemed very nervous but he was trying to hide it as much as he could.   
  
“I think our chances are great!” Dean lied, smiling. He really wanted to believe it himself, but he wasn’t sure. One thing he was sure about was the fact that he didn’t want to make his brother feel any more nervous than he already was.   
  
The three hunters arrived at the town in the middle of the night. The motel clerk glanced at them with annoyance,  and it was pretty obvious that they had pulled him out of sleep, but the man gave them a tired smile anyway, giving them the keys to the two rooms they had ordered. The night, or what was left of it, went on without any incidents. They simply flopped on their beds as soon as they reached their rooms, not even bothering to take a shower.

***

Mary had been left on her own in the house. She was bored, wandering from one room to another the whole day. Once or twice she considered cleaning up, but then decided against it. She tried to turn Bobby’s computer on to play something, but then checked this idea off as well when she realized that she actually couldn’t understand how this prehistoric mechanism worked. Okay, so actually, it was more due to the fact that it ran so slowly.   
  
She spent like five minutes just waiting for it to turn on. Mary really regretted the fact that she hadn’t brought her own computer with her, but even if she had, it was doubtful it would work without an appropriate network.   
  
The phone in the kitchen rang, making Mary jump. She rushed to the kitchen helpfully.  It was something, at least.   
  
“Hello, you’ve reached agent…” she quickly glanced on a business card lying on the table,” …Willis, FBI.” She smiled as she lifted an old white receiver with a sign “FBI” on it. “No, the agent is currently at a meeting, he is not available… Who is it? It’s his secretary, of course… You can leave him a message, or you can ask me and I will check our database… Yes, hang on a second, I’m checking…” She made a pause as she started to tap her fingers on an old looking keyboard lying on the table. The keyboard wasn’t even connected to anything, but she sure knew that if the other side of the conversation would hear it, it would seem more realistic. “Yes, we have agent Andrew Madigan in our database.  His file is showing that he is a very promising agent… you’re welcome.”   
  
She ended the call smiling wide to herself. “Geez!” She exhaled. “Always wanted to do that.”   
  
The second half of the day seemed even more boring. There weren’t any more calls to answer, any games to play, the battery on her player had died several hours ago. Mary tried to watch TV, but there wasn’t anything interesting in there. Mary got up from the couch to check movies Bobby could have around. She came closer to the TV-stand, glancing at the movie collection. “What the heck is this?” she wondered, surprised as she took out a box with a VHS in it. She opened the box, extracting a black tape from it, examining it. She turned it around, trying to understand how it could work, but quickly gave up, returning to the couch to stare some more at a shabby red wall.   
  
“And how long are you going to stand there?” she asked, not turning her head from the wall. “Yeah, I’m talking to you,” she added as there wasn’t any response. “Maybe you’ll show up and talk?” This time she turned her head to an empty looking corner.   
  
The air shifted and Castiel appeared right in the spot she had been looking at. “How did you know I was here?” he asked.   
  
“We all have our secrets, right?” She smiled casually.   
  
“Do not try to play with me, girl,” the angel warned frowning.   
  
“I wasn’t, but the idea is pretty good, actually.” Mary smiled. “If you want we can play a game.”   
  
The next eye blink Castiel was standing in front of the girl, looking her right in the eyes, but surprisingly Mary didn’t even flinch. “I’m not interested in it,” the angel stated.   
  
“So why are you here then?”   
  
“I don’t trust you,” Castiel admitted.   
  
“It’s sad, because I trust you.” Mary smiled, looking back into his eyes without any note of fear. “Are you afraid that I might do something to Dean?” she asked.   
  
“Perhaps.”   
  
“But I’m his daughter.”   
  
“I cannot look inside your mind or soul, therefore I don’t know it for sure.”   
  
“And what can I do to him?” Mary sighed, raising her eyebrows. “Even if I decide to stab him to death with a knife or whatever, you’ll just bring him back.”   
  
“I have my concerns,” the angel explained. “You don’t seem to be a normal human.”   
  
At this sentence Mary started to laugh. “Seriously?” she inquired. “And what else could I be then?”   
  
“I don’t know yet. I cannot read your soul, as I said.”   
  
“Listen… Cas…” Mary got up from the couch, trying to be at a level with the angel, even if Castiel was more than half a head taller than her. “This may come as a surprise, but I know you well, better than you think, and I understand your concern about the person you care about more than anyone else.”   
  
Castiel’s face suddenly changed to a surprised expression, and the angel took a step back, gazing at the floor now. It seemed like Mary found a sensitive spot.   
  
“Also… Cas,” Mary continued. “Maybe it would seem weird for you, but I care about you as much as I care about Dean. I swear to our father, who maybe listening somewhere, that I will never harm Dean or anyone else. I’m not lying.”   
  
“Then why are you here?” Castiel asked.   
  
“To talk to you, Actually”   
  
“About what?” The angel said, surprised.   
  
Mary opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly changed her mind. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you… not yet.”   
  
Castiel frowned, the feel of his grace, changed to more concerned once again.   
  
Mary wanted to tell Castiel everything she knew, but she realized that right now Castiel wouldn’t listen to her, even if she would be able to give him the proof of her words that he wanted. There was something bigger on the table right now.   
  
“Listen, Cas,” she whispered, “I know it all seems weird right now, but please, believe me. I wouldn’t have come here without a really important reason.”   
  
“Who sent you here?” Castiel asked.   
  
“You did.”   
  
The angel glanced at the girl like he was trying to gauge her, to understand if she was telling the truth or not. Suddenly the angel winced, touching his temple with the pads of his fingers.   
  
“It’s someone summoning you, isn’t it?” The girl inquired.   
  
“Yes,” Castiel admitted. “I will go now, but I want you to know that I will watch over you, because I still don’t trust you.”   
  
“Ok, it’s a deal then.” Mary smiled. She watched how the angel spread his huge wings behind his back, preparing to take off. “One more thing Cas…” she stopped him before he had a chance to flap them. The angel turned his head. “Dean… he cares about you. More than you think.” Castiel frowned in confusion but didn’t reply as he disappeared from the room with the usual gust of wind in his wings.   
  
Mary was left in the study alone, yet again. She sighed as she returned to the couch, settling herself. She felt miserable right now. It wasn’t like she’d had a specific plan when she’d crossed times and parallels to come here, but it sure hadn’t seemed as difficult as it was. She had no idea how she was going to talk to Castiel, to convince him not to do what he was doing. Castiel in this time was so different from the one she knew, and she had no idea how he would react to the truth.   
  
Mary closed her eyes and relaxed. Two small wings appeared behind her back as she did so. The girl turned her head, trying to glance at them, and she sighed at the view of how terrible they looked: all burned with nearly no intact feathers left, it would be impossible to even tell what color they had been before. Right now the wings looked like the wings of a deplumed chicken someone had failed to cook. The skin was red, covered in burns, but at least it still seemed alive, way better than it had been a week ago. Right now she could already see small black rachis tubes starting to appear.  It would take time, but sooner or later they’d heal, new feathers would grow back, allowing Mary to fly again, but for now she was tied to the ground, powerless.   
  
Mary carefully reached the oil glands with her finger, wincing from pain as she started to spread the oil over the injured skin. It was painful, it was uncomfortable to do it herself, but no one else could help her with it.  The only people who would be able to see her wings would be angels or Dean. Angels would probably try to smite her if they knew, and Dean… well she would have to face the problem of explaining to him where she’d gotten these wings and Dean wasn’t ready for that yet.   
  
Dean. Her father. The thoughts in her head turned in the direction of the hunter. She retracted her wings back, hiding them, and laid down on the couch, thinking. She hoped Dean wouldn’t get himself into trouble, hoped everything would turn out well on the hunt. She was still pretty pissed they didn’t take her along, but she understood that she was no use without her power intact. The jump from one parallel to another had not only spent all the grace Castiel had, but drained her own grace to nearly zero, burning her wings.   
“Please, father, save all those hunters, and be safe yourself,” she whispered closing her eyes. Mary didn’t notice herself falling asleep.

***

_ April, 2029; _   
A man with eyes once bright and green, now lifeless, was lying in the middle of a half destroyed house in a pool of blood. His hand was held in the smaller palm of a girl, her eyes filled with tears. “Dad…” she whispered, closing her eyes.   
  
The rumble nearby made her heart leap in her chest; she turned her head and saw another man crawling on the ground, trying to reach closer to the dead body of his lover. His shirt was soaked in blood which was leaking down from his nose and ears, and somewhere under his black hair interspersed with gray locks. The girl rushed to the other man, grabbing him with her hands: “Father…” she cried out. “What happened here?”   
  
“No time, my girl… you should…” He coughed the blood out his throat. “Should run… Take… my grace, use its power… run…” With those words Castiel reached to the small vial hanging around Dean's neck, took it off and placed into the girl's hand.   
  
“Where should I run? I’m not leaving you here,” the girl whimpered.   
  
“Too late for me… you should… to the beginning.”   
  
Another figure appeared from the shadow. The girl raised her head and felt the blood freeze in her veins. Here, before her eyes, was a person, and the level of power he possessed made the girl’s eyes go wide. Like electricity, it was swirling around his body, dozens of black metal-like wings behind his back. His face held an unnatural smirk and his eyes were empty, emotionless, but the girl knew his face all too well.   
  
It was Castiel, her father, only younger, different, but it was only the face, only the surface, a vessel. The creature inside it was different, not celestial: a dark, hungry, angry mass of beings. It Wasn’t even a whole being, but a combination of powerful monsters the girl had never seen before. “You have nowhere to run, Nephilim,” they announced with Castiel’s voice, deep and trembling but mixed with a low hiss at the same time. “We think you may be dangerous to us, Nephilim. We cannot let you leave. You will die, like everyone else. It is necessary, but it will be fun.”   
  
Mary looked at the creatures, feeling cold sweat cover her whole body; her terror made her unable to move a single inch. At the back of her mind, she knew that she shouldn’t stay here, should run as far away as she could, but something was preventing her from it, like an invisible barrier.   
  
The creatures raised one hand and a flash of bright light formed around it. Mary tried to spread her wings, but it was useless. The flash of light was becoming bigger and bigger and it seemed that it was about to tear itself from the hand of the creatures any moment, but suddenly everything stopped. The creatures hissed in a terrifying voice and the dark aura of them started to fade, replaced by a familiar shine of angel grace. The younger Castiel fell down on his knees, shaking and gasping, grabbing his head in his hands. “Run!” he commanded.   
  
Mary felt the barrier disappear, and she was finally able to move.   
  
“Run!” the angel yelled again. “I can’t hold them for long.”   
  
“Go! To the beginning,” whispered another Castiel, who was lying in her lap, covered in blood. The girl moved her gaze from the angel to her father, feeling tears start to run down her face with a new force. She sobbed before disappearing from the room.   
  
The angel from the past looked at his future self and smiled slightly. “I would give anything to have the life I destroyed with my own hands. I’m happy that you had at least this small time to live it,” he whispered before the souls of the Leviathans started to push his grace down, suppressing it totally. The face of his vessel pinched with indescribable anger and the light started to form around his whole body, destroying everything it was touching on its way.   
  
  
The injured man crawled closer to the dead body beside him, pressing himself closer to the still warm corpse. “I don’t blame anyone but myself. I’m sorry, I couldn’t protect anyone, couldn’t protect you, Dean, my love,” he whispered before the room sank into the white light, leaving nothing but dust behind.


	5. What Had Been Written...

_March, 2011;_

The alarm clock woke Dean up when it was seven in the morning. Dean had once been used to waking up even earlier, but after nearly two weeks without a single hunt, he couldn't exactly acclimate to the usual early-morning hunter lifestyle. He stretched, trying to wake his body totally, and got up from the bed.

“Hey, wake up!” He shook his brother’s shoulder. “We gotta find someplace that sells normal coffee. More or less.”

Sam shifted in his sleep, mumbling something indistinct, and turned to the other side, covering his head with a pillow.

“Alright, bitch, I'll shower first then,” Dean mumbled as he dragged himself to the bathroom.

Dean finished with his bathing in about twenty minutes, feeling much better and more awake, despite the series of yawns that kept creeping out of his mouth, trying to convince the hunter to get back into the warm bed. Sam must have woken up while he was in the shower. Because he was gone now. The older Winchester decided to use the time he'd had alone to change.

Sam appeared ten minutes later, holding a bag of something that looked like food and three big plastic cups of coffee. “Go and check on Bobby,” he advised, placing the bag and the cups on the table. “I bought breakfast for all of us,” he explained before taking his jacket off and disappearing into the bathroom.

Dean yawned one more time before grabbing his phone and dialing Bobby’s number. The older hunter had a room right next to them, but like hell was he going anywhere while all the coffee was still in the cup and not in his stomach.

As it turned out, the older hunter was already awake, waiting for the two brothers to finish with their morning routine. They arranged to meet outside in twenty minutes, giving Sam some time to get ready.

After they had gotten ready and filled up on breakfast, the three hunters stood outside in the parking lot, planning their next course of action.

“What do you think, should we go there right now?” Dean inquired.

“I guess it'll be for the best.” Sam nodded. “At least we'll be able to prepare for the meet-up with this... thing.”

***

The docks themselves looked pretty busy even at this early hour. Workers were fussing all around, moving cargo in and out of ships, but the hunters still didn’t have any problems sneaking to their destination unnoticed. The warehouse itself was surrounded by yellow tape, which local police left after their examination of the crime scene. When the three reached the entrance, something drew Dean’s attention.

“Look,” he pointed out, “it seems like someone got up even earlier than us today.”

The impressive-looking pad lock had already been broken open and was now laying on the ground under the door.

“Do you think it could be the creature?” Sam inquired.

“Since when did a five inch long worm need to use a door to get inside a building?” Bobby sneered sarcastically.

“So, who do you think it was?” Sam asked.

“I guess we'll find it out,” Dean said, carefully opening the door, trying to produce as little sound as he could.

The warehouse inside looked empty and abandoned; it was so quiet that every step was echoing in the room, reflecting from metal walls. Dean was trying to strain his ears and listen to see if there was anything going on around, but everything was quiet.

“Maybe they already left?” Dean suggested hopefully. “Or some crazy kids just decided to break in for fun?”

“Sure, if they broke the lock for kicks and left without going in,” Bobby sighed.

They decided to make their way further in the warehouse, keeping close to each other. The next several blocks looked empty as well. Dean was moving slowly, holding a shotgun before him, trying to detect every possible movement.

“What is this?” Sam asked as they stood in the middle of the next section.

The room itself wasn’t any different from the ones they had already passed, but here, in the middle of it, the floor was stained with something dark red. Sam moved closer, examining the stains. He touched the suspicious dense liquid with his finger, putting it closer to his face, sniffing it. “Blood,” he finally concluded, though Dean already had his suspicions. “And it’s fresh,” Sam added.

The stain on the floor was leading them to the corner of the room; it looked like someone had been dragging an unconscious—maybe even dead body across the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind. They slowly followed the trail, trying to be even more careful then they had been before. The trace went all the way down to another section and disappeared under a pile of polyethylene sheets. Dean carefully raised the corner of a lower sheet with his gun and:

“Oh shit,” he whispered. There, under the cover of several polyethylene layers, was a body. The hunters couldn’t yet see who it was. Dean passed his shotgun to his brother and started to remove the material, unwrapping the one who was laying under it.

“Oh no,” Sam gasped as they were finally able to see the person who rolled out. there, all covered in his own blood, lay Samuel Campbell, with a bullet hole right in the middle of his forehead.

Dean had no idea how to react. One the one hand it  it was Samuel, who had betrayed them, whom he promised to kill on sight, but from another he was still their grandfather, and even if his resurrection was caused by something supernatural, and he'd been dead for thirty years, Dean still felt a little upset. Plus, Sam was way more attached to the bastard, and for him, it must have been a bigger shock.

“Crap,” Dean swore, “if he’s here, so's Gwen.”

“And I bet the thing's in her, too,” Bobby said. .

“Damn, I told them not to show up,” Sam sighed, rubbing his face with his palm. Then he tensed for a second, turning his head. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

Dean and Bobby stopped motionless, trying to hear what Sam was talking about. And now Dean could clearly hear some sort of weird noise coming from another side of the room. One more moment of listening and Dean was ready to bet that he was hearing weeping coming from the metal lockers on the opposite wall.

“I think there's someone inside,” he said, carefully moving closer to the lockers. When they were close enough to recognize that the weird sound was, in fact, weeping, Dean gestured to his brother to move to another side and open the metal door, while Dean guarded him with a raised shotgun.

They did it on the count of three, revealing the young woman who had been hiding inside. She yelped, covering her face with her arms, crouching against the metal wall. “Don’t shoot, please, don’t shoot!” she pleaded.

“Oh my god, Gwen!” Sam burst out. “Are you all right?” he asked, coming closer.

Gwen opened her eyes and a wave of relieve washed over her features. “Sam? Dean?” she exhaled in surprise.

Sam helped her to get up, while Dean continued pointing his gun, as he understood perfectly that the creature they were facing could be more clever than most things they had fought against.

“What happened?” Sam asked.

Gwen leaned on Sam as she started to cry. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” she was weeping, “There was something inside me, I couldn’t control it… I killed him, Sam, I killed Samuel!”

“No, it wasn’t you, Gwen, it was the creature. You’re safe now.” He tried to calm her down, rubbing his hands along her long black hair.

“All right you idjits,” Bobby interjected, “I’m glad your cousin's safe, of course, but we're all hunters here and we have bigger problems than sobbing into each other's jackets.”

“Bobby’s right, we need to move on,” Dean agreed. “But first we need to check her ears.”

“My ears? Why?” Gwen asked, surprised.

“Well, you see, dear, we have more knowledge about the thing we're hunting now.” Dean smirked as he moved closer to Gwen, cupping her head with a free hand, angling for a better look. Maybe because Gwen was too frightened or maybe she simply didn’t expect it, she didn't protest. Dean let her go the moment he noticed there was nothing. “It’s left,” Dean concluded.

“What is this thing?” Gwen asked.

“If it were up to me, it'd be called the Jefferson Genitalia.” Dean smirked. “But apparently we're calling it the Khan Worm,” he added more seriously.

“It’s a new monster, created by Eve,” Sam explained, noticing Gwen’s confusion.

“Why the hell did you come here so early in the morning?” Bobby groaned. “We thought you wouldn't arrive till the evening. We came so we could clear everything out before someone got in trouble.”

Gwen glanced at the older hunter with distrustfully, but shook it off, probably realizing that three other hunters were all she had now. “Well, we thought we could do the same,” she explained, sighing. “We were wrong.”

“Typical,” Bobby sighed.

“All right, we probably need to continue searching,” Sam offered. “Keep your eyes on each other.”

***

For the next twenty minutes or so, they walked around the warehouse to no effect, failing to spot anything. Even with all the information Mary had shared with them, they still had no idea how this thing could move, with what speed or if it could live without host, and if yes, then for how long? With every minute that passed, there were more and more doubts about how they were going to find it.

“Maybe we should just burn the whole place down?” Dean suggested.

“There's more metal in this building than wood, it’s not going to burn,” Sam replied.

“Well, anyone else have any better ideas?” the older Winchester asked. “I think we’ve already checked every room here.”

“Maybe we could use something as bait?” Gwen proposed.

“Yeah, sure, let me just get Wormy's Favorite Monster Treats from the car,” Bobby said dryly.

“You think I’m joking? This isn't exactly fun for me, either,” Gwen groaned.

“All right guys, please relax; we aren’t in any condition to argue,” Sam interrupted. “We'd better make another round.”

At that moment, something suddenly rumbled several rooms away from them. The four hunters exchanged looks and rushed towards the sound. They were trying to be as fast and as quiet as they could. The door they heard the rumble from was close to the entrance, so it could mean only two things: either they passed something without noticing it or someone else had decided to wander into the warehouse.

When the four hunters came closer, they were able to hear someone’s steps in the next section of the warehouse, followed by more rumbling of metal and indistinct mumbling, like someone had just stumbled over something and decided to unleash his frustration in the form of swearing, but at the same time understood that he had to be quiet. Dean gestured for the others to separate into two groups, and they surround the archway between the sections.

“Freeze!” Dean yelled, jumping from his spot when the steps were close enough.

He stopped, realizing he knew who this person was.

“Damn it, Rufus!” Bobby yelled. “We could've shot you.”

“But you didn’t!” The older man smiled, moving the barrel of his shotgun away from Dean’s face.

“I think it’s no use asking why you came,” the hunter sighed.

“Yeah, couldn’t miss all the fun.” Rufus grinned.

***

For the next half  hour, nothing changed. They checked the warehouse several times, but it was empty. The hunters had several ideas, some of which included the probability that the thing was smart enough to know they were close, so it might've already jumped ahead.

Now all five of them were sitting in the middle of the main section, waiting and watching each-other carefully because it was the only thing left for them to do. But with every passing minute the simple task seemed more and more difficult, because they were all starting to get bored.

“May be we should separate into groups and search the building again?” Rufus proposed.

“Yeah, and what if it’s in one of us, so we end up losing someone?” Gwen protested.

“And what then?” Rufus groaned. “We'll sit here till someone wants to go to the bathroom? And then we'll all go together, holding hands to make sure they don't get taken over by the son-of-a-bitch?”

“All right.” Dean sighed. “We'll do one last check. But let's not split up.”

Dean turned his head to his brother and Bobby. “What do you think are our chances? Of sending these guys home, I mean?”

“Pretty damn small,” Bobby sighed. “Rufus ain't gonna go anywhere, that’s for sure.”

“And Gwen won’t go till she gets revenge for Samuel's death, ” added Sam.

“There's no time to argue with these guys.” Dean shook his head. “They have to leave no matter what. Even if I have to drag—”

He never had the chance to finish his sentence. Dean heard a shot and turned his head, seeing Gwen lying on the floor, a pool of blood slowly spreading underneath her, and Rufus standing above her with a shotgun in his hands and a shocked look on his face. The three other hunters raised their guns, pointing them at Rufus.

“Don’t shoot, it’s me!” Rufus groaned. “She jumped me, she was possessed!”

“Yeah, sure she did,” Dean said angrily.

In attempt to prove his words, Rufus threw his gun on the floor and raised his hands.

“Tie him up,” Dean commanded.

***

They tested Rufus with the electrical shock but it didn’t show anything. There was the slight chance the little shock wasn't enough to affect the worm, but they weren't willing to risk anything stronger on the man with heart problems.

Dean felt like a total idiot, leaving the two alone. Whether or not she  _had_  been possessed by the worm, it definitely would have had the time to escape when they were all over Rufus.

It was another dead end, the only difference being the corpse where there used to be a hunter. The older Winchester sat uncomfortably on the table, watching their prisoner carefully. He wasn't too happy with his decision to come here. Sure, they did it to protect the innocent, but at what cost? Two of three other hunters had died already and Dean had no idea how he could stop it.

“We need to get Rufus out of there,” the older Winchester finally commanded, standing up from the table. “Sam, Bobby, take him away and get out of here.”

“Are you out of your mind, son?” Bobby protested. “What the hell are you going to do here, alone?”

“I think I have more of a chance if you guys go.”

“Dean, stop saying that! We're not going to leave you!” Sam said.

The younger brother moved closer to Dean, crossing his arms on his chest, like that would prove him right. Dean knew perfectly well that the two other hunters weren’t going to leave him, no matter how realistic Dean’s points could be.

“Fine.” The older Winchester sighed in defeat. “But we need to get Rufus out of here. Then we can come back.”

Sam stepped closer. “And what if the thing's inside him? We'll just be letting it escape.”

“And what are we going to do? Sit here forever?” Dean inquired. “Do you have another plan?”

Sam sighed and turned back to the two older hunters. “I think we need to go for now,” he announced.

They untied Rufus from the chair and brought him out of the warehouse. There was the chance the worm would escape, but Rufus was their friend. They couldn't keep him shacked up in that place like a monster the entire night. He wasn't just another hunter; he was Bobby's friend. He meant something. Plus there was the whole future thing where only the three of them were destined to survive. Dean winced at the thought of destiny, the desire to save Rufus now becoming a personal goal for the him, he wanted to prove, yet again that there was no such thing as destiny, that they were people who could fight it and prove to the whole word that destiny was nothing but a load of bull crap.

“We need to take Gwen and Samuel out,” Sam said. “I know what you thought of them, but they were hunters. They at least deserve a proper funeral.”

Dean didn’t argue with his brother, nodding in agreement instead. Together, they extracted Samuel’s corpse from under the layers of polyethylene and dragged him back to the first room of the warehouse. Then they went back for Gwen.

What happened next was too fast for them to register, let alone react to. They didn't even have the chance to grab Gwen when Dean found himself being thrown across the room. The world darkened for a moment before Dean was able to open his eyes again. Sam and Bobby had been tossed too, and were just coming to as Dean saw Gwen standing in the middle of the room, holding Rufus by the throat.

“Sorry,” she pronounced with a deep torturous voice that didn’t belong to the girl, looking right at Dean. “I was sent to give you a message, but it looks like you already know everything,” the worm said. “And you…” it turned its head to Rufus, “mother doesn’t need you.” It smiled and squeezed Rufus’ neck under its hand.

Dean got up as fast as he could, rushing the monster, but he couldn't get there fast enough. The sound of cracking bones echoed through the half empty warehouse room, tearing a small groan of pain from Dean’s throat. In the corner of his eye he saw Sam and Bobby getting up as well. Like in an action movie, sounds began to dull as time slowed down. The hunter heard Bobby yelling something, he heard his brother shouting his name, but he wasn’t able to distinguish words as the wave of anger rushed through his blood, echoing with a loud ringing in his ears.

The monster in Gwen’s body dropped Rufus and moved out of Dean’s way before he had a chance to get to it. The worm rushed to the open window and jumped through it. Something clicked outside and the room filled with a squeaking noise and a terrible smell of burning flesh. The whole of Gwen’s body started to shake in convulsions, exuding smoke from its surface before it finally dropped to the floor.

“Take that, you son of a bitch!” Dean groaned, coming closer and watching a small worm climb out of Gwen’s ear, trembling in agony for several seconds before it curled in a ball and stopped moving.

***

It was already late in the evening when the three hunters arrived back at Sioux Falls. The Impala and Bobby’s truck were parked in the salvage yard, so quiet that it was like even the cars were mourning the events in the warehouse. Yes, they were able to defeat the worm, thanks to the Sam’s useful idea to set traps around the exits—but at what price? Three good hunters died in the process, and even if Dean knew about it from the very beginning, he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Mary rushed to the yard, meeting the hunters with a smile on her face, but noticing their mood, her facial expression turned  into a frown. She stopped for a moment and then turned around, slowly walking back into the house, not saying a single word.

They burned the bodies of Gwen and Samuel according to the tradition of hunters and buried Rufus as Bobby insisted. Dean knew that the older hunter was crushed and broken right now but he didn't show it, keeping his stoic face and pouring Johnny Walker Blue Label on Rufus' grave. Bobby was still blaming himself for the death of Rufus' daughter, and no matter what Dean said, he couldn't do a damn thing about it. Rufus wasn’t their relative, but Dean knew that sometimes, people were family, even if they didn't share blood.

Later on Bobby asked the brothers to leave him alone, so the two returned to the house. Mary was sitting on the couch, not moving, wrapping her arms around her knees.

“Are you ok?” Dean asked, taking a seat next to the girl. Mary never knew any of the hunters the worm had killed, but she still looked very depressed. The older Winchester hadn’t known his daughter for longer than a week, but he had never seen her so down. The difference between now and her usual mood was so severe that it was disturbing.

“I don’t know,” Mary answered. She paused for a moment, like she was trying to find the right words. “I’m scared,” she admitted.

“You want to talk?” Dean suddenly asked. He had no idea why he’d said that, because he wasn’t into all those heart to heart conversations. But Mary was a girl, she was allowed to show weakness, and no-one would judge her for it. And right now she needed to talk and Dean was here for her.

“I just…” she mumbled quietly, her voice broken. “I came here to change things, to prevent the big evil from rushing into the world, but how can I prevent it when we weren’t even able to prevent three people from dying? Even if we knew everything beforehand.”

Dean looked at his daughter and sighed. He knew exactly how she felt; he knew it from experience.

“I don’t know how we're going to do it, I don’t know,” Mary admitted, trying to fight tears.

“Maybe we'll start with simpler things,” Sam said as he appeared in the doorway, leaning on the side jamb with his arms across his chest. “Like you telling us everything you know.”

Mary raised her head and looked at Sam. For a moment she was silent, considering his words, but then she nodded.

“All right,” she said. “All right…”


	6. Half-blooded

_ March 2011; _

“Th e search for the Logos took us all around the world and Heaven, but in the end we were able to find it, and with its power we were able to overcome the forces of Raphael and his army.”

Mary was reading from a piece of white parchment, moving her finger over the neat lines of enochian symbols. When she finished she raised her head and looked over the company sitting in the room and looking at the girl expectantly.

“The Logos… like in ‘ En archē ēn ho Lógos, kai ho Lógos ēn pros ton Theón,’ Logos?” Sam raised his eyebrow.

“Like in where?” Asked Dean not even looking up. He was holding a bottle of cold beer pressed to his forehead – the older Winchester had a headache the whole morning.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was god; John 1:1... ” Sam answered sighing.

“I thought that John was talking more about something abstract, like the ideology.” Bobby commented rocking in his chair behind the desk.

“As the journal describes, Logos is an actual book. God created it before he started to work on the World trying to describe everything he had planned for it.” Mary started to explain in her own words “But the Logos isn’t just a notebook with sketches and ideas. It’s the world’s most powerful artifact and you were able to get a hold on it and defeat Raphael in my time line.”

“This is a straight-forward blasphemy” Groaned Castiel. Since the very moment the angel had appeared, Castiel was quietly standing in his favorite spot in the corner of the room next to the book shelf, half leaning on its wooden side. He was making it obvious he wasn’t interested in anything the girl was saying. Mary herself could read perfectly every tingle in his grace noticing how it was reacting to every word she was saying, how tense the angel became when Mary mentioned Raphael. “The Logos was nothing but an idea, if the Logos were a book I would know  about it.”

“Good point.” Bobby noted.

“Well,” Mary shrugged her shoulders. For all the time she had spent with young Dean and Castiel (although for Castiel the word “young” wouldn’t actually work) she had realized that stubbornness was the main character flaw for both of them. At least this time she had something to prove she was right. “Take a closer look.” She held out the parchment to the angel with a cheerful grin on her face, like it was the one million dollar lottery ticket.

Castiel cautiously stepped towards the couch and took the paper from Mary’s hand. For several moments his eyes were running thought the text before they finally returned to study her. “Where did you get it?” He asked.

“The same place as your sword.” Mary sighed. “You gave it to me.”

“What is it, Cas?” Asked Sam.

“This…” The angel looked at the parchment again. “This is my handwriting. I wrote it.”

“Well, isn’t it a good thing, then? Now you have a clue how to beat your power-crazy brother.” Bobby proposed.

Castiel didn’t reply, instead continuing to examine the paper.

“ I think we should go.” Sam added as he stood up from his place, tapping the surface of the table with his hands. “Still have the Campbell’s archives to check on. Dean, let’s go.”

The older brother only groaned in response, shooting an annoyed look his brother’s way as he took a sip from his bottle.

“I don’t understand” Castiel said suddenly, still frowning over an entry from his own journal. “Why would I compare Dean’s eyes with myrtle leaves from a branch, which for some reason he presented me on a Sunday morning?”

Dean choked on his beer.

***

Mary was laying on a couch in the study gazing aimlessly at the celling.  Dean and Sam had left to check the Campbell archive in order to recover some books, and Castiel hadn’t seen any reason to stay, leaving Bobby and Mary alone at the house. Bobby was cooking something in the kitchen and Mary was yet again dying of boredom. The trip to the mall for clothes was the only time she had been allowed to go anywhere but the house or the backyard. Then again it wasn’t like she actually had anywhere to go since all her friends had been left in 2029.

She missed her own time. Even though she had always wanted to find herself in the center of a great adventure like the ones her parents and uncle had been on, she still found herself loning to see the people she had left behind. Now she wasn’t even sure if she would ever be able to return, to stop her father from opening Purgatory and freeing the Leviathans, to fix everything and set everything right.

Mary turned to her stomach and freed her wings. She wasn’t worry about Bobby walking in on her like this because the older hunter couldn’t see them anyway. The girl twitched her nearly healed wings and opened herself a little to allow a thin thread of heaven’s power to connect with her feathered appendages. She wasn’t taking much, not because she was afraid of the host noticing her, since it was too small an amount, but because the more power she had – the more difficult it was to hide her angelic heritage and she couldn’t allow anyone to know yet, before she was sure Castiel would stop working with Crowley. On the other hand she was also afraid to be completely drained if something bad were to happen.

Her phone suddenly began ringing. Mary reached for her bag and extracted a thin device moving it closer in order to see the caller ID. Two things suddenly occurred to her: first was that the number was hidden and there was only one person in the universe who would call her from a hidden number, and the second was the fact that it was actually  ** _her_**  phone ringing – the one which shouldn’t have a signal in this time line.

Mary jumped into a sitting position and accepted the call.

“Hello?” She said in a whisper since Bobby wasn’t too far away.

“Hey.” Was the answer on the other side, the voice calm and low. It was very quiet and mixed with a white noise and it was nearly impossible to hear, but the fact was that Jesse Turner found a way to call her through time and dimensions. Mary knew that it was impossible even for a cambion like Jesse, unless he found a way to get enough power.

“Jess. How?”

“It doesn’t matter. How are you? Found your dads?”

“Yes… and I’m fine. And… you did it again… why?”

“Because when you’re done there, someone needs to pull you back.” The voice sighed.

“Not this way. We can find another solution!” Mary whispered in annoyance.

“First, I would love to see you try to find one, because I bet that vial of Castiel’s grace was empty before you even reached 2011, and I know you understand that you can’t take the grace of the Cas you’re currently hanging out with, and you will never have enough power on your own to make the second jump. Second, you’re not my mother or my wife so don’t tell me what to do.” The end of the sentence was said in a higher tone revealing the fact that  Jesse was getting angry. Mary had seen him angry and she hadn’t liked it.

“How many will it take to pull me out?” she asked, rubbing her forehead with a hand.

“Fifty.”

“Fifty?”

“Thousand”

“You understand that’s like the population of a whole town? Where are you getting them?”

“I have my ways.” Jesse explained. “Save this call and press call back when you’re ready.”

“You need to stop.”

The call ended with a beep making Mary shudder, the sound was too loud compared to the half-demon’s voice.

“Or I will have to stop you…” She added, closing her eyes and squeezing the phone in her hand. The image of Jesse killing a demon and sucking it up into himself was still fresh in her mind even if it happened nearly a year ago in her time. The way his eyes turned black for just  a split second.

“What, boyfriend problems?” She heard from her left, and turned her head. There, leaning on a doorframe that lead to the kitchen, stood Bobby with his arms crossed over his chest. “So, what was all of that about?”

***

_ April 2029; _

Mary fled from the house as fast as she could and as far as she could. She wasn’t powerful enough to fly with the speed of an angel, but when after several minutes she finally stopped, she found herself on a lonely empty beach somewhere on the Pacific Ocean. It was cold here and the heavy rain was falling from the sky in pitchforks.  Mary didn’t have any warm clothes, but she could use her grace to warm herself, not to the point she would feel comfortable, but it would at least allow her to not freeze to death. The humid air smelled like salt and snow and she could see mountaintops covered in white close to the horizon, so most likely she had fled over Canada and ended up near Alaska without realizing it.

Mary was crying but her tears were quickly mixing with the rain and washing away. She found a lonely rock close to the shoreline and climbed up to sit on it, pulling her knees close to her chest and wrapping them in her arms. One of her hands was still clenched around the vial Castiel had given her before his death.

Her cell phone started to ring playing the same melody Dean had always had on his own phone, without even looking at who it was she flipped it open and brought it to her ear.

“Where the hell are you?” Jesse asked angrily.

“I Have no idea. Somewhere close to Alaska, I suppose.”

She heard the half demon groaning but then he calmed down and continued: “I felt what happened. Came to check on your house and it was gone - ruined flat. Can you snap me a picture of your surroundings?”

Without even replying Mary moved the phone from her ear, took a picture of the mountains and sent it to Jesse. Next second she felt the rain stop pouring around her and a warm blanket touch her shoulders.

“Sam and his wife are okay. I hid them well.” continued Jesse standing next to Mary, “I did have to put Sam to sleep though, since the bastard was too stubborn. Aithne and Don are out somewhere in Texas hunting. I doubt those things would go after them. Ben and Clair are also not of interest to them I think.”

Mary finally turned her head to look at the man standing at her left and looking into the horizon where the ocean met the sky. His short dark hair was waving slightly in the wind, along with his long black coat which gave him this air of romantic mystery. Mary knew very well that it was only the air, and Jesse was not actually romantic or mysterious.

“Any ideas about what to do?” Jesse asked her finally, moving his gaze from the ocean and fixing his gray eyes on her.

“My father said that I should return to the beginning.”

“Time travel won’t help - this thing didn’t come from our universe.”

“What do you mean?” Mary inquired.

“I mean that we will have to pull something more serious in order to throw you through realms.” Jesse sighed. “Hold on.”

The cambion kneeled next to the girl and carefully gripped her under the arms and knees. The next moment Mary found herself in a random motel room which smelled of mold and tobacco sitting on the edge of a single queen-sized bed. The rain water started to leak from her clothes quickly soaking into the bed sheets, but Mary could care less.

“Take off your clothes, your human parts can still get sick.” Jesse commanded.

The girl started to undress slowly and with no enthusiasm. Usually she would have argued with anyone who tried to command her, but right now she was so emotionally drained that she didn’t care. She didn’t even care that Jesse was still in the room.

The half demon was watching her undressing emotionlessly. In any other situation Mary would have wondered if Jesse considered her sexually attractive, because even if he did, he had never shown any signs of it. The man’s expression was absolutely blank.

“Climb under the blanket, I’ll go get some stuff you might need.”

With those words he turned away spreading his wings. They looked exactly like Mary’s but dark, tainted, absorbing their energy not from Heaven but Hell.

“Jess…” she called out. The cambion stopped and turned his head. “Why are you helping me?” Mary asked.

The half demon grinned with a low chuckle. “Because when the time comes you will be the one to help me take over Hell.”

“I won’t help you with anything.”

“We’ll see…” Jesse concluded and disappeared from the room.

Mary spent several hours alone in the motel room. She was lying on the bed clenching into the vial of grace, not even moving. The girl had no idea where she was or how long it would take Jesse to return, and she didn’t really care. The realization of what had happened slowly started to catch up with her, making Mary shiver in fright and grief. Her life had been simple and easy. She went to school, hung out with friends, and every time she had returned home her parents were waiting. Sometimes either Dean or Castiel had left town with Sam for a hunt – the epoch of the Apocalypse had been averted, and all of the hunts they were doing were easy in comparison but they kept the hunter family in shape.

But now everything was gone, in just one morning. When Mary had returned home to find her parents in a pool of blood and those terrible creatures in the shape of Castiel standing above them, laughing. Mary squeezed the vial in her hand and the grace in it responded with several warming thuds.

This grace belonged to her father. Mary knew that the angel’s grace wasn’t alive by itself - it didn’t have Castiel’s memories or emotions. Grace wasn’t even like a human soul - it was merely a source of power, a battery. It wasn’t even all of Castiel’s grace – the angel had kept only a part of it to allow himself to spend a lifetime with Dean as a mortal, but still retain some of his abilities. Mary knew that her father had been planning to use the grace to return to Heaven as an angel when Dean’s time came, to spend the rest of the eternity with his soul mate.

Mary gave out a loud sigh and stood from the bed. “My parents gave up everything for each-other and for me. I won’t allow anyone to come and destroy our lives!” She said raising her head to the ceiling. “I know that I’m not as powerful as a full-fledged angel, but I still can do it!” She groaned with anger. “You hear me grandfather! You gave up on us, you allowed this to happen to us, but it doesn’t matter! I will fix everything, you hear me?!” The last part of her speech had nearly turned into a yell and suddenly the feeling of despair disappeared from Mary’s heart, letting her breathe with relief.

“Nice speech.” Mary heard Jesse’s voice from behind and turned toward it, seeing the half-demon standing in the middle of the room with a huge duffel bag. “The panic room and everything in it, was the only thing to survive.” He said placing the bag on the bed. “It looks like I have everything to open the portal.”

Mary glanced at her friend and noticed that something was off. The slight sheen of dark energy was surrounding him and it suddenly explained what had taken him several hours.

“You got new souls, didn’t you?” Mary sighed.

“Vampires.” The half demon replied indifferently.

“It doesn’t matter! Do you understand you’re playing with fire?”

“No… not with fire” Jesse smirked. “Fire can’t harm me - with hellfire.”

“You need to stop!” Mary groaned angrily. “My father didn’t save you so you could become this!”

“He didn’t save me,” Jesse corrected. “He just didn’t let your other father kill me.”

 “Jesse!”

The half-demon suddenly glared at Mary with a look filled with anger so great that it made the girl shiver. The cambion could look intimidating when he wanted to.

“I’m saving innocent people!” He groaned stepping closer to the girl. “I’m a hunter like your parents. I kill monsters, not humans.” He took another step. “And I kill demons, because I won’t be satisfied until every single one of them is gone, and I’m trying to help you by opening a portal to the time vortex since you won’t be able to do it yourself.” With a final step he was now standing in Mary’s personal space, glaring into her eyes. “I’m not human, and not an angel, and I’m not trying to convince you that I’m good, because I’m not. So keep your righteous opinion to yourself, naphil*!”

Mary had retreated to the wall staring at her friend in shock. She wasn’t afraid of him because she knew that Jesse would never harm her. Maybe because he liked her, or maybe because he simply needed her for bigger plans. The half-demon never asked for Mary’s trust, so he never gave straight answers.

“And put some of the clothes that I brought on, because even if I’m not a human, I’m still a man.” Jesse sighed calming down and stepping away from the girl.

That moment Mary suddenly realized that she was still absolutely naked, and a heavy blush crept across her face. She grabbed Jesse by the collar of his coat and pushed him toward the door, opened it and showed him outside.

“You, creep!” She yelled. “You could have said something earlier!”

When the storm of embarrassment finally calmed down, Mary opened the bag trying to find clothes. Two objects were laying on the very top, which made her heart swell: Castiel’s sword and his journal. She carefully extracted the two placing them on her bare knees and rubbing her fingers over the smooth cold surface of the blade and the rough leather of the journal.

“I can do it…” she whispered. “And I will do it!”

***

_ March 2011 _

Mary was sitting on the couch with her palms flat on her knees. She was trying to explain the situation to Bobby in as much detailed as she could without mentioning the relationship between Dean and Castiel. The older hunter was sitting next to her listening carefully to every word.

“So, the guy is hunting monsters and sucking their souls up?” Bobby concluded after Mary finished. “What is it with you, Winchesters, and making deals with devils?”

Mary sighed but didn’t reply.

“You do understand he’s manipulating you?”

“I’m not stupid.” Mary replied. “I don’t trust him, he never wanted me to. But I don’t know what else to do. Dean gave him a chance to live.” Mary shook her head. “Dean believed that he could grow into a decent being and I believed it too. He has never harmed a human, but the path he is choosing… I don’t know. I’m afraid that if I am unable to talk him out of it, I will have to…” Mary paused clenching her fists into the fabric of her jeans “I will have to stop him.”

Bobby gave the girl a meaningful look. “You like the guy, don’t you?” He asked with a sigh.

“I…” Mary recalled the half demon’s face, his features, his deep gray eyes, and her heart started to beat faster in her chest. She had never thought about it, but when Bobby brought it up a sudden realization struck her. “I think so…” She whispered.

 “Well, isn’t it wonderful?!” The old hunter smiled with sarcasm. “Having an antichrist as a BF  and hoping everything will turn right! I hope you didn’t do anything stupid, girl…”

Mary blinked looking Bobby in the eyes. “Stupid like…”

“Well, like ‘drink my blood you will like it’ or, I dunno, a ‘night of fiery passion’ stupid.”

Mary blushed a little. The conversation was starting to remind her of the evening when Dean had been giving her the ‘birds and the bee’s’ talk.

“I didn’t drink anything!” Mary protested. “And about the other stuff… I’m still pure enough to pet a unicorn.” She added mockingly .

“Well, good.” Bobby nodded.

An uncomfortable silence seemed to dampen the air.

“You know.” Bobby finally said. “I’m not a person who easily trusts people. And don’t take me the wrong way, I still don’t trust you, but… you are the first of the Winchesters who at least can open their mouth without feeding some bull… poop like ‘it doesn’t matter’. I understand that your situation is difficult, but one thing I’ve learned over years of hunting – there is no such thing as a good demon. Even if his intentions are white and fluffy, it doesn’t change a thing.”

Mary sat in a silence for a moment and then said: “Thank you Bobby. I understand that there is no advice in the world which could help me, since I know where this leads... just thank you for listening.” She moved to the old hunter embracing him in her arms, then stood from the couch leaving Bobby with an awkwardly open mouth.

“I think I will go take a shower and then I will help you with dinner. Sam and Dean should be home any minute.”

With those words Mary disappeared from view, leaving bobby alone in the study.

“Well, balls…” the old hunter muttered under his breath.

His eyes suddenly slid to a duffel bag Mary left on the floor next to the couch, a corner of the leather journal was proudly poking from it.

“Balls!” Bobby repeated. “Well, no one can blame an old man for curiosity.” He nodded to himself reaching for the book.

* * *

*Naphil – a variation of the word Nephil. (Nephilim is a plural form of the word in Hebrew. Although English adopted it as a singular, creating own plural version of the word by adding ‘s’).


	7. A Song of A Banshee (part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter disclaimer:  
> This chapter is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

_“There’s another question: why would you fall? Why would you wanna be one of us?”_

_March 2011;_  
Bloody Run County Park. Iowa;  
  
The web of thick tree branches was entangled above Dave’s head. It was getting dark, really dark, although the guy was pretty sure it was a middle of a day no more than half an hour ago. Dave wasn’t a person who would usually believe in all the scary-stories about magic and ghosts, he wasn’t a person who could be scared easily by creepy places either, but there was something in here that was making the blood freeze in his veins – a dark feeling he was neither able to understand nor control.  
  
“Chris? Steve? I’m going to kick your asses when I find you!” He yelled into the depth of the forest but didn’t receive even an echo in reply.  
  
Dave stopped for a second trying to look around. He was considering simply turning around and giving up on the stupid bet he made with his friends, even if it probably meant that now everyone in school would consider him a chicken, but then he realized that there wasn’t any way back. The forest around the guy was dense and somber and it was impossible to understand which direction he had come from in the first place. Dave fished his phone from the pocket of his jacket trying to pinpoint his location on a GPS map, but the stupid device didn’t have any kind of signal out here.  
  
The panic inside him was progressively rising, it seemed that it was difficult to hear anything because of how loudly Dave’s own heart was beating in his chest. Panic was unreasonable, and he knew it. There wasn’t anything around him that could make him feel this way. Yes, the forest was dark and creepy, yes it really looked like he was lost but other than that, there was nothing. Dave was a very smart guy, despite all the stereotypes of football captains one could have, he remembered from his Boy Scout training how people should behave in a situation like this, how to survive in a forest when you got lost. He knew that panic was the last thing to do, that he had to calm down and calculate his next move with care, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. All he wanted right now was to run as far as his legs could carry him.  
  
Taking several deep breaths he closed his eyes trying to relax, but it didn’t help. Not sure what else to do he continued to move forward wrapping his arm around himself, like he was cold. Several times he saw shadows lurking behind the trees but was trying to convince himself that it was only his imagination playing dirty tricks on him. Each time it was more and more difficult.  
After several long minutes Dave finally reached a small opening in the forest which looked brighter than the forest cover he had left a second ago. From here he could hear a roar of rushing water coming from the left. This could be his way out, because finding yourself near a river was the best thing if you were lost in the forest – not only would you not need to worry about water, but all rivers would take you somewhere in the end if you stuck with it. Without second thought the guy moved towards the sound of the water, feeling surprisingly relieved about finding a potential way out of this trap.  
  
When the sound of the river was so close Dave was sure he could reach it any moment, a very quiet song reached his ears. It was a beautiful melody, familiar as a lullaby he heard from own mother as she sang it to Dave’s younger sister when she was just a toddler and he was five years old, but at the same time it was alien, unfamiliar and filled with so much sadness that the guy felt tears starting to roll down his cheeks. Every emotion mixed inside the teenager’s head, all the fright he felt moments ago disappeared to be replaced by a beautiful sad song luring him closer and closer to the river which he could now see but couldn’t hear, as every single sound around him but the melody disappeared.  
  
Several more steps closer to the sound and Dave could see the source of the song – a middle age woman was sitting on the shore on one of the rocks bending to the water as she washed a piece of cloth. She was pale, dressed in a white dirty dress with her long chestnut hair falling on her shoulders and sang, not paying any attention to Dave’s appearance.  
“Excuse me, ma’am ?” The teenager called, “I think I got lost what is the direction of a nearest town?” He asked.  
The women stopped to sing and turned her head looking Dave right in the eyes. The air around the guy suddenly became so cold that Dave exhaled a puff of steam, the feeling of dread and fear suddenly returned and now it was even stronger. He tried to shake it off, but it really was impossible. The woman tilted her head, then she pulled a velvet jacket from the water holding it out and started to cry. The jacket was covered in blood and looked exactly like the one Dave was currently wearing. The teenager couldn’t resist hiding his hands in the pockets of his own jacket but suddenly realized that he wasn’t wearing it any longer.  
“What the…” He swore and his voice trembled in panic.  
He took several careful steps back then turned and started to run. The fear inside him had become unbearable and he could hear his own blood pounding in his ears, but along with this noise he could hear something which sounded like strikes of thunder behind his back. The teenager turned his head and saw a large wave of water rushing in his direction.  
  
This shouldn’t have been real, it simply couldn’t. Dave was sure he was asleep and it was simply a nightmare. Not sure what else to do he stopped looking at the water coming closer and closer with each second.  
  
Dave prayed. His Christian family had taught him to, taught him that Heaven had mercy and angels were looking after him - after all good people. And even if it happened that several times he and his friends had pulled stupid pranks on people in school, even if it happened that he locked someone in a bathroom or bullied someone, he still believed that he was a good person…

  
  


***

_March 2011;_   
Sioux Falls. South Dakota;

_“He will go down he will drown drown, deeper down  
The river wild will take your only child”_  
  
Bobby’s old computer was trying it’s damndest to play a heavy sounding song which in Sam’s opinion was even worse than what Dean usually listened to.  
  
 _“He will go down he will drown drown, deeper down  
The mills grind slow in a riverbed ghost town  
He will go down he will drown drown, deeper down.”_  
  
As Bobby’s old set of speakers blared out the distracting music Sam was trying his best to concentrate on the book of Genesis he was reading. Yes, they were on a square one once again and instead of looking for clues and lore about the Mother of All, they returned to looking for information about the heavenly squad and the creation of the world. And it wasn’t actually something Sam would be against, because he really never minded helping out angels, unlike his brother. Well, good angels of course. It was just everyone suddenly dropped all their businesses and started to dig information for a clue about the Logos Mary had given them. Even Castiel himself had agreed that it might have been something to check out after Mary had shown him a page from Castiel’s own journal from the future. And if the angel decided that it was something worth looking into, then Sam was on his side.  
  
So, apparently there was some sort of a book or a manuscript which belonged to God himself, and which was used by him to describe the universe he was going to create. It was something like blue prints of the world, and the book itself had the magical properties of a great artifact you could use to change destiny. Mary had no idea about any details or ways of getting a hold of the Logos, but at least it was a start.  
  
And once again if even Castiel, who at first had said that the story was nothing but a myth, changed his mind, then Sam was more than happy to help a friend. But what was really annoying the younger Winchester was Dean’s blind trust in Mary. Yes, he understood that Mary was his unborn in this time daughter, but she still didn’t tell them everything, Sam was sure of it. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the girl, he was simply afraid for Dean, that he could get hurt by his blind trust and Sam didn’t want his brother to suffer.  
  
 _“What is it you dream of, child of mine?  
The magic ride, the mermaid cove?  
Never met a kinder heart than yours,  
Let it bleed  
Leave a footprint on every island you see”_  
  
“Mary, could you please turn it down?” Sam yelled from the couch. Mary was sitting in the same room, but the music was too loud to speak in a normal tone.  
  
“Sorry!” the girl responded and turned the song off. “Any luck on finding anything?” She inquired.  
Sam sighed and closed his book since there was nothing in it about the magical world’s blueprints. Plus the hunter was simply tired, he had spent the whole day trying to dig anything up.  
  
“No, nothing…” He confessed.  
  
Mary gave him a sad look and turned her head back to the screen. The next moment she closed the internet page she was looking at and said: “Me neither… It’s like no-one ever even heard anything about it, even angels.”  
  
“Don’t worry, we will figure it out. We always do.” Sam reassured her. May be he still didn’t trust her as much as Dean, but he could see that the girl was honestly trying to help.  
  
Not sure what else to do, Sam picked a remote control from the couch and turned on the TV – at least he could check news stories to find out whether there was anything supernatural going on.  
  
The first program that appeared on the screen was a soppy soap opera of some kind so he quickly switched to another channel.  
 _“The cheetah is a carnivore, eating mostly mammals under 40 kilos, including the Thomson's gazelle, the Grant's gazelle, the springbok and the impala.”_  
  
Sam gave a weak smile at the mention of the impalas and switched the channel again.  
  
 _“I have never believed in angels before,”_  a woman with short dark chestnut hair who looked no older than thirty years old was saying,  _“But he came to me, he said he promised my cousin to take care of me, I had cancer and he healed me…”_  
Even knowing that the angels were actually real that sounded like the wobbling of a crazy person to the hunter. In fact, knowing that angels were real made it sound even crazier. In the background Mary made an amused sound and turned back to the computer screen, trying to entertain herself now with a click-and-go game.  
  
 _“Yet another teenager who went missing last week around Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, found drowned this morning in the north-west part of the Bloody Run County Park in Iowa.”_  
  
Sam listened to the report on the next channel but didn’t find it in any way supernatural so he turned the TV off.  
“I’m gonna go check on Dean.” He said, as he started to stand up but at this moment Bobby appeared in the doorway. He stepped toward the younger hunter throwing a folder onto his lap. “Wisconsin, get ready, you will leave tomorrow morning.”

 

***

“Do you understand that we currently have bigger problems on our plate?” Inquired Castiel, who appeared in the middle of the case discussion.  
  
As it happened the mysterious disappearing teenagers did actually look more supernatural than Sam originally thought. Not only were all three children going to the same school, but it also happened that the bodies of the two who were found were covered in blood even though they didn’t have any injuries. In addition all the blood in their bodies was replaced by river water, if this didn’t sound supernatural Sam wasn’t sure what did.  
  
“Since when did you start commanding us?” Dean replied with annoyance. It looked like the angel wanted to snap back at the older Winchester but in the middle of opening of his mouth he stopped and reconsidered: “I… apologize,” he replied instead, “I understand that saving people is your priority, but the information we were able to find may be important and save the lives of more people than you could imagine.”  
  
“Ca… Cas,” Mary made several steps towards the angel, putting a hand on his shoulder. Sam noticed that this made Castiel visibly flinch and take a small step backward, eyeing the girl like she was about to stab him or something. If Sam was trying to be cautious about Mary, it looked like Castiel didn’t trust her even a little bit and wasn’t trying to hide it. “We spent three days trying to find any information. I’m sorry that I’m not able to provide you with anything better than we have, this journal of yours and several stories you and Dean have told me was everything I had.”  
  
Sam wondered for a moment why Castiel was among the people telling Dean’s daughter stories about past deeds, but the air suddenly shifted as the angel surged toward the girl, facing her now nearly nose to nose. “Do you have more pages of this manuscript?” He asked with an irritated note in his voice.  
  
“Well… yes, I do…” Mary nodded. The girl didn’t even flinch under the angel’s gaze.  
  
“Give them to me!” Castiel commanded.  
  
“I’m sorry, I can’t… I think you already know what kind of consequences that could cause.”  
  
Now the air felt like it was pressurized, the lights in the room started to flicker and…  
  
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Cas!” Dean interrupted, and the room immediately returned to its previous condition. “Relax, dude! Mary has a point here.”  
  
This time Sam couldn’t help himself from interfering. He knew that his brother would protect Mary no matter what and he honestly didn’t have anything against it, but in this situation he seemed to be the only person less involved in the current dissent. He also understood that Mary didn’t want to show much of the journal because it could (and probably did) contain something about the hunters’ own future, but was it really that bad that Mary was ready to risk their trust?  
  
“Really Mary,  If you were at least to explain...” Sam started.  
  
Mary and Castiel simultaneously turned their heads toward him and now two pairsof bright blue eyes were staring at him and... oh…  _oh!_  
  
Words stuck in Sam’s throat not able to leave it. No… it couldn’t be anything but a simple coincidence that the angel and Dean’s daughter had not only an absolutely identical color of eyes, but their shape as well? Add to that picture the fact that the form of their lips was really similar?.. No, it had to be nothing but a coincidence.  
  
“Sam?” Dean called “Man, are you all right over there?” The older Winchester asked.  
  
Sam shook his head: “Yeah…” he nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine… I just… forgot what I wanted to say, that’s it. Probably too tired.”  
Dean rolled his eyes and turned toward the kitchen. Sam followed his brother with his eyes until Dean disappeared behind the door. When Sam returned his gaze to Castiel and Mary, he found only the girl standing in the middle of the study.  
“I should probably hit the sack.” Sam murmured and hurried from the room.

 

***

“No!” Dean nearly yelled turning on his heel to face his daughter. “There is no way in hell we are taking you on a hunt with us! I told you last time!”  
  
“But it’s so unfair!” Mary protested. “I’m an experienced hunter, my knowledge of supernatural lore is the same as yours!”  
Mary was bald faced lying. It wasn’t ‘an evil monster who wants to dominate everyone’ kind of lie but more of an ‘I’m a little teenage brat who used to tell shit to my overprotective parents to get around’ one.  
  
Dean’s eyes flickered and to Sam it looked like he was an inch away from actually considering taking Mary to the hunt.  
  
“Very well!” Sam got up from the couch he was sitting on and moved towards the girl.  
  
“Wait, what?” Dean surprised. “You actually want to take her?”  
  
Sam could have explained his plan, but instead he sent his brother a cheerful grin that said ‘don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.’  
  
“Here,” Sam tugged a gun from under his belt, clicked the ejector extracting the magazine, then with a quick motion of his hand took off the barrel. He considered disassembling the gun even further, but decided it was enough for a simple test. “How fast can you put it together?” He placed the parts on the table before Mary and stepped aside giving the girl some space.  
  
Mary carefully took the main part in her right hand and the barrel into left, trying to put the two parts together. In about five or six seconds she did figure it out, but any knowledgeable person could tell that it was maybe not the first time she’d held a gun in her hand but she was far from professional.

“What?” She grumbled blushing. “Guns in the future are different, all right!”  
  
Dean raised his eyebrows looking at his brother with a smirk then turned to Mary and nodded. “All right…” he said. “What have you really been doing before the time and space jumping?”  
  
Mary looked away rubbing her neck ashamedly. “I’ve been going to school…” she admitted.  
  
“Perfect!” Dean smiled widely. “It looks like Bobby will have someone to keep him company while were gone.”

 

***

Several hours in on the trip to Wisconsin Sam pondered sharing with Dean his little discovery about Mary, but he had no idea how to bring it up. To tell the truth Sam wasn’t even sure that he really needed to share it. Yes, Dean’s daughter really had Castiel’s features, but it could be a simple coincidence. Obviously he could see how much Dean and Castiel cared about each-other, but having a kid together was way beyond Sam’s comprehension, he wasn’t even sure if it was physically possible. Yes, Castiel wasn’t  _technically_  a man but Sam had no idea how angels reproduced, or even if they did reproduce, and imagining Castiel mojoing a child into existence seemed too ridiculous.  
  
“How did you find it out?” Dean suddenly asked making Sam jerk in the seat.  
  
“Found out what?” He inquired with a little panic, as if Dean had read his mind and had seen what Sam had just been thinking about.  
The older brother sized Sam up, raising his eyebrows. “That Mary had never actually hunted.” He specified. “Why, Did you find out something else I should know about?” He asked.  
  
Well that was the perfect chance to bring it up. “No,” Sam shook his head, “I just wasn’t sure what you were talking about.” In the end Sam decided to keep the discovery to himself until he had a chance to research the topic.  
  
“It’s just that she talks about hunting, about the Apocalypse, angels and demons like it some sort of romantic adventure, you know?” Sam started to explain, “did you hear the music she listens to? It’s obvious that she knows a lot, but if she had faced anything a normal hunter faces every week…”  
  
“So… basically the kid just read a lot of fairy tales knowing that they are actually true and decided that she can pull a magic sword from a rock and save the world?” Dean concluded.  
  
“Yeah, something like that.” Sam nodded.  
  
“Well, swords in a stone are big sons of bitches, trust me on that!” Dean pointed out, knowingly wagging his finger in the air.  
“That’s why you use dynamite!” Sam laughed.  
  
Dean laughed back and for a moment Sam could imagine that there weren’t any ends of the world, any archangels or mothers of all, it was just him and his big brother in the car moving from one city to another hunting monsters, and saving people. A wave of warmth spread through Sam’s body allowing him to relax and feel happy while he still could.  
  
“You know…” Dean started hesitantly. “I tried to play happy families  once with Lisa.”  
  
Sam’s smile disappeared from his face as he gave his brother a chance to open up. It didn’t happen often that Dean talked about his feelings.  
  
“And now it looks like I actually got a family. A daughter going to school, probably a loving wife somewhere too.”  
“You talk about it like it’s a bad thing.”  
  
“And is it a good thing? I got a family somewhere in another universe, I put them all in danger, and look what it lead to? A time traveling daughter trying to prevent another end of the world with us. I screwed up! Again…”  
  
“Dean…” Sam tried but he really didn’t know what to say.  
  
The older Winchester sighed and turned all his attention to the road not saying anything else.  
  
Sam turned his head staring pointlessly out the window. The thick forest of pines was rushing before his eyes and it looked like the landscape wouldn’t change for many miles. Sam really wanted his brother to be happy and not drown in guilt, and if Sam’s suspicions had even a slightest chance of being truthful, it could really help Dean.  
  
The younger hunter decided that the first thing he would do when he found a spot with decent Wi-Fi is to do some research. Something was telling him that it would be pretty much useless though. His other impulse was to call Castiel and ask, but that would be even more awkward than talking to Dean about the possibility that Mary could be Castiel’s kid. There had to be a way to find out, and Sam suddenly realized that he actually had someone to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Used song lyrics:  
> Nightwish - "Ghost River"


	8. A Song of A Banshee (part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Disclaimer: This chapter is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

_March 2011;_

Even though Prairie du Chien was technically a city it was still a very peaceful place. The two brothers had stopped in a motel which reminded them more of a forest camping site. The room had the quality of a hunting cabin from the outside to the inside. It even had a small fireplace, with a fake bear skin in front of it and a deer head above it (although it was difficult to tell if it was fake without climbing onto a chair to examine it). Sam went for some groceries, leaving the older brother in the room with his laptop.

But researching wasn't really something the hunter could do right now, he was tired from a whole day of driving. Looking at the bear pelt, in the back of his mind thinking how nice it would be to bring a hot chick in here, and have sex with her on the bear skin, but most likely he wouldn't have time for it.

Dean sighed and opened the small fridge in the corner of the room to extract a cold beer. When he closed the door of the fridge he spotted Castiel standing in the middle of the room right next to the fake bear skin staring at it with an expression, which Dean thought seemed to be hiding some kind of emotion, but it was impossible to read.

Dean had given up on freaking out at the angel's appearances without warning long ago. If he still lectured Castiel on it from time to time, it was simply because the angel had behaved like a total jerk lately, concerned with nothing but his 'heavenly business.' Dean remembered a time, about two years ago, when Castiel would visit them simply because he had wanted to, because he had been to tired of searching for an absent father, or simply had wanted company. It had often happened in those moments when Sam wasn't around. The hunter and the angel had shared a beer, staring at the TV screen and not saying a single word: their friendship had never needed words. It was simply pleasant to be near each-other sometimes, knowing that both of them were throat deep in shit and still making time for each other. But that time was long since gone. Now apparently Castiel was a big boss up in heaven, and gifted the Winchesters with his holy presence only when he had important business.

Right now was probably one of these business visits as well. Dean waited a second, watching the angel continue sending the fake fur some kind of non-verbal message. Dean had no idea what Castiel was thinking about, but it was probably not what Dean had been thinking when he had looked at the same fur several moments ago. As far as the hunter knew Castiel still had his virginity intact, maybe that was why he looked grumpier with every passing week. The guy really needed a good lay.

Dean shook his head, trying to banish the totally inappropriate thoughts about the angel having sex. For some reason it was an unpleasant thought and Dean decided that he would try not to put "Castiel" and "sex" in the same thought from now on.

"Do you want a beer?" Dean asked.

Castiel finally tore his gaze from the skin and looked at the hunter. "Yes, I'll accept that offer. Than you." He replied. Dean reached into the fridge for the second time and extracted the second bottle and offering it to the angel. Castiel took the bottle from Dean's hand and moved to sit on one of the chairs around the wooden table. Dean followed his friend's example taking a seat on the opposite side.

"I don't understand," Castiel started, "what is the point of making a rug look like a dangerous animal?"

For a moment it was the same old Castiel Dean used to know, used to fight alongside. Half fallen angel who was still kicking demon asses and carried knowledge of billions of years, but at the same time couldn't understand simple human things like fake bear pelts or why a brand of toilet paper was called 'angel soft' because "angels weren't corporeal in their true form, and so had no texture that humans were capable of sensing."

Dean looked at Castiel and noticed how wary he was. It looked like the angel had aged in the past two years, it seemed as though there were more wrinkles under his eyes, of course Dean knew that Castiel couldn't actually age and Jimmy had been only four years older than Dean when Castiel had possessed him (which right now made this difference only one year) but everything the angel had experienced seemed to be imprinted on his vessel's face like the years had actually mattered. Dean found himself longing to reach for the angel and smooth the wariness from his features with the tip of his fingers, but didn't because that would be too inappropriate.

"Well, it makes it look cozy, you know…" Dean replied to the angel's question.

"Do you find it cozy?" Castiel asked.

"Well, it could be." Dean grinned remembering his short fantasy about the rug, but before Castiel could ask in what way it could be cozy, he added. "Discussing fake animal pelts wasn't the real reason you came, was it?"

Castiel took a long sip from his beer and shivered slightly, like he wanted to say something important but didn't know how.

"Come on man, spill it." Dean encouraged.

"This girl, your daughter. She is hiding something." Castiel started.

"Of course she is, like who her mom is for example, and which shirt will be my favorite in ten years."

"No, I don't mean that," Castiel disagreed. "I mean something bigger."

"Like she isn't my daughter and simply trying to manipulate me?" Dean inquired.

"Not that either. I do believe that she is your daughter, and the information about the Logos that she gave us was extremely useful. I talked to some of my generals, Balthazar included, and they all think that the Logos could actually exist."

"So what's the problem then? I mean, I know everything lately seems kinda sketchy, and I don't exactly trust her with everything yet either, but she is a nice girl. At least try to give her a chance."

Castiel was silent for a moment, considering the hunter's words. "I will try." He nodded "I just… I just worry about you, Dean." He added.

Oh… Castiel was worrying about him. That was touching, and not even in a sarcastic way, but for real. Dean felt a small wave of warmth rushing over him. "Thanks man." Dean smiled.

"Dean…" Castiel continued. "If we are able to find the Logos, I can stop Raphael and his army."

"I know Cas," Dean nodded. "But there are also urgent things happening here on Earth."

"You don't understand Dean."

"Ok, so enlighten me!" Dean said flinging his arms up.

"If Raphael wins…" Castiel paused, averting his gaze. "If he wins, the first thing he will do is open Lucifer's Cage again. The Apocalypse will come all over again."

"Ok, I've heard this story too many times Cas. There's nothing new you could add?" Dean groaned angrily.

"Dean, I'm sorry, I just couldn't. Everything you gave up to protect this world and now… I can't ask you for more, I'm just trying to protect you, to stop Raphael so you wouldn't have to."

A light shiver ran through Dean's spine. Dean had no idea what made the angel come to him with a look like a kicked puppy, telling him that all he wanted was to protect Dean. Before this Dean had been sure that the angel didn't want Dean in his life anymore and that was why he had been avoiding him all this time, and all that time the hunter had spent with Lisa and Ben, trying to forget about his past, he had failed miserably.

"Cas…" Dean sighed. "You should have come earlier. You should have said something! We are together in this, and if I or Sam can help." Dean mumbled.

"You are helping." Castiel cut him off.

"Yeah, every time you need something you come down and order us around like we are your own soldiers, without even explaining."

"Isn't that what you're doing with me?" The angel replied.

"Don't even start!" Dean felt like the blood in his veins was boiling with anger. He knew that Castiel's words had a little truth in them and he tried to calm down. "We are both full of crap, all right? Let's just try to behave like adults, instead of trying to find out who's right and who's wrong."

"I'm sorry…" Castiel apologized.

"It's ok, man…" Dean nodded clapping the angel on his shoulder. "We'll finish up here and we'll dig deeper into the search for the damn book, I promise, and if the shit hits the fan, I'll be here, ok?"

Castiel looked at Dean like with those huge blue eyes in that overly emotive way of his that made Dean's heart swell. "Thank you Dean." Castiel said. "And if you need my help, I am also here. Anytime." And with that the angel was gone, leaving a half-empty bottle of beer on the table.

 

***

The morgue worker looked like an actor from one of the TV shows Dean used to watch with Lisa. He wasn't the hot heartbreaker type, more like a very minor role, a poor shmuck who didn't really like his job, half bald and in his late thirties. His baldness and grim features made him appear ready for retirement thirty years early. He gave the two brothers a look like he cared neither for their presence in the morgue nor for the fact that the dead bodies of teenagers were starting to pop up like mushrooms after a rain all around the city. Dean was sure that he would have let them in even if they didn't have their badges.

"David Harrison, sixteen years old, Prairie du Chein High School student, has been found in the area of Bloody Run County Park in Iowa." He announced with no enthusiasm as he pulled the body out of the shelf. "All the blood in his body was replaced with water." he added without surprise like it was something he had seen every day.

"Do you have any logical explanation for how that could have happened?" Sam inquired.

The Morgue worker sized the younger Winchester up from head to toe before shrugging his shoulders: "A ghost?" he proposed.

"What, is it often that ghosts kidnap people around there?" Dean asked in amusement.

"Well, The Bloody Run is famous for its spookiness. They even have their own ghost cave, you know." The doctor replied.

"And do you believe in it?" Sam asked.

"Listen, my working schedule ended four hours ago when I finished with my night shift. The guy who supposed to come after me is on a vacation for the past six days. I'm tired, I want to go home. I have no idea what happened with this kid or how this was possible, so if you excuse me…" He smiled awkwardly and started to head out of the room.

"Umm, excuse me Dr.…" Sam glanced over the nametag of the morgue worker. "Dr. Crunch, one more question."

"All right," Nodded Crunch with this an expression on his face that said that every second spent at work was giving him an extra headache. Dean noted that the name of the doctor suited him well.

"You said that the other worker hasn't been showing for the last six days, isn't that the time when the disappearances started?"

"Well…" The worker actually took a moment to think about the idea and then nodded. "Yeah, he took time off exactly at the time the kids started to go missing."

"Do you know if there is any connection between him and the victims?" Sam asked.

"Now that I think about it, yes." Mister Crunch agreed. "His son works as a janitor in the school where the missing boys were going."

"Is his son ok?" Dean inquired.

The morgue worker rubbed his head and bit his lip, it looked like he only now started to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. "I'm not sure how to answer that," he admitted. "I have never been close to Gary, or his son. The guy is as okay as he can be for a kid with a pervasive developmental disorder and genetic defects."

"Pervasive developmental disorder?" Dean asked again.

"Autism" Sam explained quickly, then turned his attention back to doctor Crunch.

"Were they connected in any other way?"

"Well, you see Daniel is a very… unusual guy, especially in the eyes of kids like David" Crunch nodded towards the dead body. "I can imagine kids picking on him for that, but I really have no idea how this could be connected."

"I think that's all we wanted to know, we can pick up from there." Sam smiled

"So, witchcraft maybe?" Sam turned to his brother when the morgue worker left them alone with the corpse. "It would make sense. A group of teenagers started to pick on the poor guy, dad decided to deal with it in non-standard ways."

"But my EMF detector screams 'a ghost' over here" Dean pointed out on the small device he was checking the body with. "Maybe this Mr. Crunch is trying to wind us up?"

"Well, there is only one way to find out" Sam nodded knowingly.

***

Gary Oakford was living in a typical suburb in the northern part of Prairie du Chein. There was nothing suspicious or outstanding about his house or his lifestyle. There also wasn't anything suspicious about the man himself. He was born and lived all his life here in the west border of Minnesota, raising his child all alone. He was one of those typical guys who had never stood out in the crowd because everything about him was so average, so similar to millions and millions of other people around the world: not a genius, but not stupid, not rich, but could afford a vacation from time to time, not ugly, but far from someone who could get on the cover of Men's Health. But there were rumors about a woman who had changed his life. People were describing her as the most beautiful woman they had ever seen, gorgeous and kind. They had no idea why she'd pick a guy like Gary, but she had. A year later she had given birth to a child and suddenly disappeared. Gary believed that something bad had happened to her, those around him simply thought that she'd realized her mistake, or that she'd thought she couldn't handle the responsibility of a disabled child and simply ran away.

"So, all the missing children were going to the school where Daniel works?" Inquired Dean who was sitting in front of the man in a small living room.

"Yes, yes they were" Nodded Gary.

"Were there any incidents between the kids and your son?"

Gary gave the two agents a confused look then shook his head. "I don't understand, are you blaming my son for this? That's absurd, Daniel never even leaves the house on his own. I'm the one who drives him to and from school every day."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Oakford, we don't have any suspects yet, it's just standard procedure questioning, we have to cover every possibility." Sam tried to calm the guy down.

"Well yeah, my son isn't exactly normal, you see… he is very shy and smart. A year ago they decided to open an Archeology experimental class, and as my son had always had a lot of passion in the topic he decided to join the program. It was difficult to find a way to make it work, but we did. He got a job as a janitor in the school as I wasn't able to drive him for only one class. Daniel is a really good guy, he just has a lot of trouble communicating with others, and his appearance also plays a role. I know he is strong enough to hold his own, but he never does, he just allows the kids to do whatever they want to him."

"Whatever they want?" Dean inquired.

"Well, once they took his phone and locked him in a maintenance closet. Daniel was in there half the day because the only way to leave was for him was to break the lock and he didn't want to damage school property."

"And no-one from the school faculty did anything about it? I mean stealing a phone isn't exactly a prank, it's straight forward robbery." Sam asked.

"They could have done something about it, but they don't have any proof. Plus one of the kids responsible was the principal's own son, who in turn is good friends with the sheriff. I think you can imagine how that works."

"Yeah, pretty much," Dean started. "Seems like this whole situation could make you a little angry, you know, make you want some justice?"

This time Gary look at Dean with annoyance. "I know what game you're playing here, agents." He said. "I also have a degree in criminology. I know that I have no alibi, and the motive to do something to those kids, since my vacation coincidentally matched up with the time of the first disappearance, but let me tell you something. When I first heard that the kids who bullied my son went missing I felt mixed feelings. Part of me was happy that God had brought them to justice, I'm not going to lie. But another part of me knew how wrong that was. They are only kids and of course they pull stupid things on each other, I know this from my own school days, and a stolen phone wasn't worth their lives. I immediately regretted my own thoughts, and I still do."

"I understand Mr. Oakford" Sam nodded. "We really don't blame you for anything."

"Oh… Mr. Oakford?" Dean smiled. "May I use your bathroom?"

Gary simply nodded and pointed Dean toward the direction of the bathroom. Dean excused himself and wandered from the room, finding himself in a small corridor. On one side was the bathroom and on the other side there were three doors leading to different rooms. One of them was ajar and Dean looked into it noticing a guy sitting in front of his desk and writing something. Dean realized what Gary had likely meant by his appearance causing him problems, the kid was simply humongous. His shoulders weren't muscular but they were way wider than even Dean had, and if he were to stand up Dean was sure he would dwarf even Sam. Dean quickly checked his EMF (since the dead boy had definitely had spirit contact the moment before his death), but the device was silent. If there was anything ghost related in the house, like if the father decided to bind a spirit with some sort of a spell, the EMF would have pick it up even if the ritual wasn't performed in the house, the traces would still stick to things like clothes.

Dean checked the master and guest bedrooms, but there wasn't anything. Hiding his EMF detector again, Dean returned to the living room.

 

***

Talking to the kids and the principal of the Prairie du Chain High School didn't have any better results. The principal was (of course) sure that the disappearances weren't connected to the school in any way and the fact that all the missing or dead kids were going to the same school was a simple coincidence. Two guys who were with David the day of his disappearance, Steve and Chris, hadn't seen anything either. According to their story they had simply gone for a camping trip to a neighboring state, and dared each other into wandering into a spooky looking forest. They didn't hear or see anything weird before their friend disappeared.

With empty hands and more questions than answers the two brothers returned to the motel room to do some research on any cases with people drowning in the river around the Bloody run, but they still came up with nothing.

"All right, we have three missing kids over six days. All of them were going to the same school and were sort of… bullies." Sam was trying to make a sense of it by reciting the facts. "All of them were connected to a guy named Daniel, but the two dead guys were definitely killed by a ghost and there weren't any traces of ghosts in the Oakford house." No, the evidences didn't make any sense in Dean's opinion. "I don't think Daniel and his father are connected to it actually." Sam admitted.

"So, we are back to square one." Dean sighed. "What now?"

"I don't know" the younger brother admitted. With that he moved his laptop closer, returning to his research. "Maybe this will help us out…" He sighed turning the screen so Dean could read.

"Another body of a missing child had been found in the Limery Ridge Natural Area" Dean read the start of the police report, "that's pretty close to our motel."

"I think we should go." Sam said standing up from the table.

 

***

"I've never seen anything like this before," admitted the police officer who was leading the two brothers to the crime scene.

"What do you mean?" Inquired Dean.

"Well, see for yourself." The officer sighed and pointed to a rock accumulation, which was surrounded with yellow tape. Several other police officers were fussing around it taking pictures of the scene. An ambulance was staying nearby and a teenage girl with long blond hair was sitting in it, crying. On one side of her stood a doctor and on the other – a police officer who was asking the girl questions.

When Dean took a closer look to the pile of rocks he could finally see what the police officer meant: here, half stuck into a rock was hanging the body of one of the missing boys.

"It looks like the kid actually melted into the rock." The officer said. "I have no idea how it could have happened."

"Do you mind if we take a closer look?" Sam asked.

"Sure, suite yourself, agents," the officer nodded.

When Dean stepped closer to the guy the EMF detector signaled in his pocket with loud beeps. The older Winchester reached into his pocket and turned it off.

"Well, that would explain," Sam pointed out as he heard the signal. "Poor thing."

The head of the dead boy was halfway sunk into the rock and his face was twisted with pain and fear. It wasn't a pleasant thing to see, and even Dean who saw a lot of awful stuff in his life twitched in empathy because the death likely wasn't fast.

"Excuse me, officer." Sam called. "There were witnesses this time, weren't there?" He asked when the officer turned his attention to the younger Winchester.

"Yes," The officer replied. "The girlfriend of the dead guy insists that she saw how it happened four days ago. Since then she had been coming here every day to look for Alex for herself and today she found this." The officer explained.

"Can we talk to her?" Sam asked.

"Of course, but I don't think it will tell you anything."

"Why do you say that?"

"You see…" The officer rubbed his forehead looking away. "It often happens that the death of a close one can lead to… psychological issues."

"What kind of issues?" Dean inquired.

"The girl insisted that a ghost did it to her boyfriend."

Sam approached the girl flashing the other officers who were talking to her his FBI badge and gestured for them to give him some privacy.

"Mind telling us what happened?" he asked when the officer left them.

The girl looked at the younger Winchester and then turned her head away. "You won't believe me," she whispered. "No one does."

"Just try us." Dean pulled one of the best smiles he had in his arsenal.

The girl gave him a disbelieving look but actually started to talk. "It was a woman, she was dressed in white." She started, "four days ago me and Alex were walking around the park late at night. It was nearly empty, it was very romantic. But then we heard this song."

"A song?" Asked Sam

"Yeah," The girl nodded. "This woman was sitting over this pond," she pointed to the direction of a small pond in the middle of the park, "she was washing something in it and singing. It was a really quiet melody and so sad." The girl shivered at the memory. "Alex decided to approach her and suddenly both of them disappeared. Just vanished."

"Anything else you noticed about the woman?" Sam inquired.

"No, it was dark." The girl shook her head. "But I swear I'm telling the truth! Anyway, there is no way I'm returning to school after this!" She groaned.

"Why is that?" Sam inquired.

"It's this stupid collection from a museum they brought us to study for history class. This all started with it. The guys were making jokes about it being damned with an ancient curse. All that crap was giving me goosebumps from the beginning and then this!"

Sam and Dean exchanged looks.

"All right, thank you for your time miss. And I'm really sorry about your boyfriend." Sam said to her.

The girl didn't reply, tugging the blanket further over her shoulders.

 

***

"So, at least now we have something" Sam started when they finally returned to their room. "Six days ago the national museum Of History in Washington, the one who is sponsoring the experimental Archeology class, sent a rare collection of ancient artifacts to the school for students to study. Right now the collection is in the archive of the Prairie du Chein High School's History department. It's locked most of the time and only students under the watchful eye of the instructors are allowed to work with it."

"So, it's not the first time we've had to sneak into school late at night." Dean said.

"Well, it's not that easy." Sam shook his head. "We don't have a clue what to look for. Of course we could simply salt and burn every single item, but it could be problematic. Plus the security in there is pretty good. I'm sure I will be able to hack into the system and turn everything off but someone would notice it, so we would have no more than several minutes to grab what we had come for and disappear without a trace."

"So, what's the plan then?" Dean asked. "We can't pretend something else when the teachers and janitors already saw us as FBI agents."

Sam looked at his brother and sighed. "If we only had someone who could… I dunno pretend to be a student? Who could sneak in there and check everything before we act?"

Dean didn't immediately understand what his brother meant but when the realization suddenly hit him his response was vehement. "No!" He replied. "No frigging way in hell we are dragging Mary into this!"


	9. A Song of A Banshee (part 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter disclaimer:  
> This chapter is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

March 2011;  
The cabinet of the school’s principal was pretty impressive, decorated in hundreds of different certificates, grateful letters, different trophies and medals. The principal himself, Mr. Rendell, looked like a prosperous and serious man in his late forties who was sitting on his comfortable office chair and smiling warmly at the young girl and her father who were sitting in front of him, moving his gaze from time to time from them to an open folder with very fake, but masterfully worked documents which he was holding in his hands.

“So, Mary Winchester,” he concluded warmly. “To tell the truth, I’m pretty impressed with your grade scores, you seem to me like a young lady with great prospects for the future! Your father should be very proud to have such a daughter, aren’t you, Mr. Winchester?”

With those words Rendell turned his attention to a man sitting next to Mary looking extremely awkward in his tan coat, gazing around the room curiously with his blue eyes.

“She is…” Castiel paused glancing at Mary. “…a very good girl.”

“Isn’t there anything particular you’re interested in?” Rendell asked Mary.

“Yes - History and Archeology. I have already heard about the collection of ancient artifacts for the experimental archeology class from the museum the school received and I think that working with them could be really great opportunity for me.”

“So, it turned out that moving to another town could actually have a plus side?” the principal laughed.

“And what business brought you into our humble city?” Rendell asked the angel.

Castiel fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair eyeing the principal with a look like he thought he could better solve this problem by simply smiting him instead of talking. Or maybe simply putting every single school staff member to sleep, then teleporting into the archive, stealing the artifacts and destroying all the security cameras on his way, because this way he would probably attract less attention.

“A computer software company offered me a position.” He mumbled in his very deep and very monotone voice.

Mr. Rendell nodded understandingly and stood from his chair moving towards the girl and the angel.

“So, welcome to the Prairie Du Chien High School, Mary!” He said with enthusiasm, shaking the girl’s hand. “And enjoy your stay!”

 

***  
“That was easy!” Mary addressed to Dean who was listening the whole conversation sitting outside the school in the car through a hands free Bluetooth device in Mary’s ear.

“Well, alright, it’s not time for celebration just yet.” Dean replied. “When is your Archeology class?” He asked.

“In two hours. I will ask to stay after the class to work on my paper. I don’t think it’s going to be suspicious considering that the other students are half done with their work and I’m only starting.”

“All right, good.” Dean sighed. “And remember, if you see anything suspicious – run. No heroism, understood?”

“Don’t worry, see weird stuff – run. Sounds easy enough.” Mary repeated.

“Good.” Dean said. “All right, I’m going to hang on for now, but call me back when you stay after class. Jesus, Cas!” He added suddenly. Mary turned her head and saw that the angel who was following her had now disappeared. “Stop doing that!” Dean groaned on the other end and ended the call.

At the school Mary found that she didn’t look much different from the other students. It was a small three store building with long corridors painted in boring white and numerous doors leading into the classrooms.

Mary had several classes today and Archeology was her last one. Her fake documents said that Mary was an A student, which she actually was. Because all of the missing kids were one year younger than Mary, had transferred into a class that was one grade lower than she actually should have been in, and she highly doubted that there had been many changes in the educational system over eighteen years, the task of looking like a smart kid didn’t seem all that difficult.

The first class in her schedule was the math. The professor introduced her before the whole class and sent her to take an empty spot in the very middle of the room. Mary looked around and felt a sort of nostalgia creeping under her skin. She’d only missed a few weeks of school but for some reasons it felt like it was years.

Mary felt something poking her in the back and turned her head noticing a very handsome guy in a red jersey with a sly grin on his face holding a piece of paper. Mary carefully took the paper so the teacher wouldn’t see the movement and opened it under her table.

“Nice shirt, Angel. Smiley face.” The paper said.

Mary knew that she wasn’t a bad looking girl, a lot of guys in her own school used to flirt. Usually she didn’t respond to it much, but right now it was a great opportunity to blend in.

“It’s just camouflage.” She wrote on the paper and added a winking smile with little horns above it.

When he passed the note back it said. “Would like to discover your true nature.”

“If you have enough patience, cowboy!” She wrote. “I’m not that easy” She wrote on the paper before passing it back yet again.

“Lunch in the school cafeteria?”

“Sounds romantic!” she replied

A girl sitting to the left of Mary gave them both an angry look and turned back to her notebook.

 

***  
The cafeteria was noisy, filled with hundreds of students hurrying up to get their meals and sit with their friends to discuss recent news such as who was dating whom, the latest movies they’d watched, or a new model of cellphones they had bought. If not for the fact that the movies they were discussing were considered retro in Mary’s time and the models of cellphones they had were long gone, the common atmosphere of the place was exactly the same as twenty years from now. Mary was sitting in the corner of the room not because she wanted to stay unnoticed, but because it was a good spot to watch the cafeteria since she could see everything and everyone in it. For the first ten minutes there wasn’t anything going on, but a simple routine of hungry people consuming their meals or standing in line to get one.

Suddenly the appearance of an enormous guy in a janitor’s uniform attracted her attention. He was taller than anyone else in the cafeteria by at least a head or two. He had ginormous shoulders and even considering that his head looked disproportionately large. The guy reminded Mary of a giant from a fairytale, but that wasn’t actually the reason Mary couldn’t take her eyes off of him. There was something off about him, but right now Mary couldn’t put a finger on what exactly.

“So, Mary, how do you like our city?” She heard suddenly from her side. Mary turned her head and saw the guy who had been writing her notes in class.

“Ugh, sorry, didn’t notice you.” Mary smiled. “And the place is nice, although I didn’t have a chance to see much of it yet.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you actually like this friggin village!” The guy chuckled.

“Well, for now it seems fine to me, but I bet I’m going to change my mind when I realize there is nowhere to actually go” the girl joked.

The enormous guy was standing in the line with his tray looking thoughtfully at the floor. Several times he didn’t even notice the fact that the line moved till the person behind him either poked him to move or simply moved ahead of him.

“Chris, by the way.” The guy smiled holding out his hand. Mary shook his hand and smiled.

“Nice to meet you Chris.” She said.

Now it was the enormous guy’s turn to pick what he wanted but he simply stayed there staring at food like he had never seen it.

“What a weirdo.” Chris who probably followed Mary’s gaze commented.

“He is… different” Mary said not even noticing that she had said it out loud.

“That’s Daniel and he is a weirdo! Anyway, if you haven’t seen much of the town, want me to show you around?”

“Sure, when?” Mary asked with a smile.

“How about right after school? I have a car.”

Mary was about to agree but then remembered why exactly she had been sent here. “Ughh, I can’t do it today. I wanted to work in the History class.” She admitted. From a certain point of view it wasn’t even a lie.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re the one of those ultra-smart girls.” The guy joked.

“What, are you afraid of smart women?” Mary winked.

Daniel finally picked what he wanted and was moving to find a spot to sit but a precise shove of a shoulder from another guy on his giant hand made him fumble and drop his tray. All his food ended up on the floor. Some people didn’t even turn their heads, trying to ignore it, others including Chris started to laugh.

“You consider that funny?” Mary asked angrily.

“Yeah, why not?” Asked Chris.

Mary didn’t reply just left her food on the table and moved towards the giant guy. She kneeled next to him, helping to pick up the knocked down plates.

“Are you all right?” She asked.

For a second Daniel didn’t even notice her or her question, but then he raised his head and looked at the girl. A very visible blush spread over his face and his eyes for a split second flickered with slightly visible white-blue light, making Mary stop dead with wide opened eyes.

The guy most likely noticed the fact that Mary could see what had happened. He looked at the mess on the floor, seeming to will it away and hurried from the dining room.

“Wait a minute!” Mary jumped from the floor and started to run after the guy, but when she exited the cafeteria, he was nowhere to be seen.

Not sure what to do she simply leant on the wall with one of her shoulders, trying to comprehend what had just happened.

 

***  
The experimental archeology class was eighty percent girls. Mary had only a minute to wonder about why so many girls would be in one class when a teacher entered the class explaining everything merely by his presence. The guy was no older than thirty and extremely handsome looking, with bright gray eyes and blond hair, wearing the same hairstyle that Dean had used to. He was dressed in a gray suit and was wearing glasses, which made him look even more handsome.

“All right,” the teacher smiled opening his notebook. “It looks like we have a new student in the class.” He turned to look at Mary. “Do you want to introduce yourself?”

When Mary stood from her chair to walk to the desk for a standard ‘new student’ introduction, a door opened and Daniel walked into the classroom. This time he wasn’t wearing the uniform, but a pair of dark jeans with a plain long sleeved shirt. He didn’t notice Mary and it seemed the whole class didn’t notice his presence either. The guy walked to his spot which to the Mary’s surprise was right next to the spot she had chosen to sit, and took his book out of his back pack.

Daniel noticed Mary only at the moment she was returning to her spot. He blushed yet again and turned to look out the window.

 

***  
“Now, who can tell me how old this Vase could be?” The teacher asked the class when they were gathered around the table wearing white aprons and rubber gloves. A bunch of different vases, coins and ceramic plates were displayed on the table.”

The class was mostly silent. It was obvious that the majority of the students were here because of the handsome professor. The other part seemed to have no idea why they even picked the class to begin with.

“The knotting system reminds me of Celtic culture, but it is different from the knots the traditional Celtic culture used.” Suddenly someone started, the voice deep but gentle and quiet. Mary looked at the speaker and realized that it was Daniel.

“Very good, Daniel!” The teacher encouraged.

“Celtic knots had been changed a lot prior to the Christian influence which took place in around the fourth century AD.” Mary added. She knew a lot about Celtic culture and mythology not because she was good at history but mostly because of the field of work of her parents.

“Good, Mary, good!” the teacher nodded.

Daniel stepped closer asking the teacher if he could take the vase into his hands. The teacher gave him the permission without even flinching even though Daniel looked extremely clumsy, and the small vase looked so ancient and fragile.

“But the way it was burned it looks more modern, Celts didn’t have the technology to do this in the fourth century.” Daniel said.

Mary went up to Daniel and carefully took his hands into her own, looking him in the eyes while moving the vase closer to herself so they both could look at it. Daniel blushed yet again which made his eyes flicker with light.

“So, either the Celts had better technology then we thought, or the vase was made way later and the artist was simply trying to imitate an older pattern.” Mary said.

“Ok, would you try to guess the century it was made in?”

Mary knew a lot about Celtic culture, but her specialization was mythology, not pot appraisal. That didn’t mean she couldn’t cheat. Nearly effortlessly she reached to the surface of the vase with her grace, reading the whole of its history as if from a book. Daniel in his turn was simply staring at the vase thoughtfully. “Twenty first” They said simultaneously, leaving the teacher with an open mouth.

“Oh, wow,” he finally managed to say. “You’re the first two archeology students I’ve had who were able to do it.”

 

***  
“I understand your passion for archeology, Mary.” The teacher sighed when the class had been dismissed. “But I’m not allowed to let you work with the actual museum collection till next semester.”

Mary tried to give him the best puppy eyes she could manage “Are you sure you can’t make an exception this once?” she asked.

The teacher looked at the girl for a moment, considering then sighed. “All right, let’s go.” He said, then turned to look at the door and added. “You too Daniel, I know you’re standing behind that door.”

At his words the door opened and the giant guy walked into the classroom. He gave Mary a shy look and moved closer.

“You will have to write a research paper on one of the object of your choice at the end of the year, so would you two like to, as they say, dig into it?”

“Yeah, that would be interesting!” Mary smiled as she and Daniel followed the teacher into the back door leading to the archive.

The entrance here was highly secured. The teacher entered the code on the pad lock and swiped his card. Mary watched him carefully hiding the card into the inside pocket of his jacket. Then she looked around noticing several cameras around the room. Even more cameras were installed inside the archive.

“Pretty heavy security.” Mary pointed out.

“Yeah,” the teacher agreed. “When they sent the collection for the experimental class, guys from Washington’s museum came here themselves to set the security system.” He explained. “All right, here is our collection. All of it came from fourth century Scotland.”

“Does it mean that the items belong to England and not to the US?” Mary asked.

“They were brought here before the revolution, so no. Right now they are considered propriety of the States.” The teacher explained.

With that he started to carefully move the boxes, extracting the items they were holding. “Here’s the original of the replica you were examining today in class” He pointed on the small wooden box. “We also have several similar vases in here, and ancient coins. Even the skull of a woman seventeen centuries old. He extracted a small black box covered in white sigils. “The box itself is also pretty old, like five or six centuries. Covered in sigils which according to the lore supposed to protect from evil spirits.” He was explaining while showing the box to Mary and the very silent Daniel.

And yes, Mary had seen those sigils before, it was definitely one of the boxes for cursed items.

“Was it sealed when the box arrived?” The girl asked.

“Yeah, it looked like no-one opened it since the time the skull has been placed in it.” The teacher said. “Why do you ask? Want to pick the skull for the final research paper?”

“Oh no! I don’t really like skulls.” Mary smiled. “I mean I know that when I will become an archeologist, I will have to deal with them, but for now I think a vase can do. Especially I’m interested in the vase we have been looking at in the class today. I think it may be interesting to write the differences between the original and the replica.”

“Wise choice!” the teacher agreed. “And what about you, Daniel?”

“I… I think I will take the skull.” He said after a short pause.

 

***  
Dean was sitting in the car nervously tapping his fingers over the surface of the searing wheel. His phone was lying on his lap and from time to time the older Winchester couldn’t resist picking it up and checking if he’d miss a call, even if the phone wasn’t on silent and it had been only three hours since Mary was left alone in the school. He was sure she was going to call any moment.

“Dean, you’re like an overprotective parent.” Sam joked.

“Well, yeah, I didn’t like the idea of letting her go in the first place, remember?”

“Well, she did pretty good talking to the principal, plus it’s a daytime and the only thing she needs to do is check on the stuff in the history class archive.”

“I still think it would be faster if I simply flied into the school and took everything.” Castiel who was sitting in the back seat of the car complained.

“Cas, we talked about that. We’re not attracting more attention than we already have.” Sam protested. “Don’t worry, tonight we are getting into the school and tomorrow morning we will be on our way to Bobby.

Castiel grimaced in discontent and anticipation crossing his hands on his chest.

“You also did pretty great, you know.” Sam smiled to the angel.

“Yeah, Cas,” Dean picked up on the topic. “Compared to the last time with the police guy you made a huge improvement,” The older brother turned to the angel with a wide smile playing on his face. “Soon you are going to become an even better liar than I am!”

Castiel suddenly met Dean’s eyes with his own and the smile disappeared from Dean’s face. There was something in the angel’s eyes so deep and sad at the same time, that Dean’s breath was caught in his lungs.

Sam cleared his throat awkwardly and Dean realized how inappropriately long he had been staring into Castiel’s eyes, again.

“That is not something I can be proud of.” The angel said with a sigh.

For a minute an awkward silence fell around all three of them, disturbed only by the taps of Dean’s fingers over the leather of the searing wheel. And finally, finally Dean’s phone rang in his lap.

“Mary!” He exclaimed answering the call by putting it on speaker phone.

“I found what we are looking for. It is the skull of a woman from fourth century Scotland.” Mary replied.

“Are you sure?” Dean asked.

“Pretty sure. The thing was in a cursed item box. It was sealed for centuries and opened only six days ago when the collection arrived at the school.”

“Perfect!” Dean smiled. “Now we need to get a hold on it and burn the bi… burn the skull!”

“Dean… How did the ghost this girl described look?

“Well, a white dress, pale. Don’t know. A typical vengeful spirit.” Dean answered

“And she was washing clothes in a pond? Singing?”

“Wait a second!” Sam interrupted. “The skull is from Scotland, right? Looks like we’re talking about a banshee here!”

“That’s what it looks like. All right, I’m going to hang on. Meet you in ten minutes in the parking lot.” With those words Mary hung up.

Dean turned to his brother and asked. “Ok, we’re meeting Mary, going somewhere to grab a bite, then returning to the motel and waiting for night to come.”

 

***  
Mary exited the bathroom she’d used to call Dean and nearly rammed into the ginormous frame of Daniel.

“Oh, sorry!” She apologized.

“Are you ok?” He asked.

“Yes, thank you!” The girl smiled.

All the classes had ended an hour ago and the school corridors were absolutely empty. The sun had only started to move towards the horizon but it was low enough to give the walls a pleasant golden tone. Mary was slowly walking alongside Daniel towards the exit. She knew that she couldn’t tell Dean and Sam about the fact that Daniel wasn’t human, at least not until the moment they would be ready to find out that Mary herself wasn’t. This was most likely her first and only chance to see someone like herself. 

“May I see your wings?” Mary asked in a whisper.

Daniel looked at the girl smiling and the next moment two white half transparent wings appeared behind his back. Mary allowed her own wings out and slightly brushed their feathers together. The next moment she started to feel the loud and extremely hard thuds of Daniels grace and the vibrating of a human soul. That was weird. The grace of Nephilim as the grace of angels weren’t supposed to thud so much. Mary knew that it could happen sometimes when an angel was stressed or very angry, but Daniel didn’t look either stressed or angry, maybe slightly flushed, but no more. And as far as Mary knew human souls did not vibrate.

She smiled awkwardly and hid her wings back. “Thank you” she whispered.

When both of them were leaving the school building, Mary saw Chris standing near the entrance leaning on one of the columns. He was smiling, but when he saw Daniel next to the girl, the smile disappeared from his face.

“Really, now?” He exclaimed. “Don’t tell me you decided to hang out with this freak of nature!”

“He has a name!” Mary protested.

“And do you know what that makes you?” He asked. “As freaky as this giant guy over there, whore!”

Now Mary was really angry, but she knew that she couldn’t pick a fight right now. Sam and Dean were waiting for her in the car right behind the corner of the building, plus it was her only day in this school anyway.

“Better be a freak, but with a heart, than a soulless bastard.” She whispered and at the same time realized her mistake.

“Whom did you call a bastard, you mud?” Chris busted angrily stepping closer to the girl, but suddenly Daniel stood in-between making Chris retreat.

“Whatever!” He said. “Tomorrow the whole schools going to know what a freak and a whore you are!” He laughed and turned to walk away.

“I don’t like him” Daniel said and suddenly his grace gave one last thud, loud enough that Mary could hear it even without physical contact.

“That’s all right” Mary smiled. “Just… go home, I should go home too.”

 

***  
Asking Mary to investigate the school wasn’t such a bad idea Dean was starting to think. Not only she was able to find the skull, but she also gave the teacher one final hug, stealing the key-card from his pocket. If Dean wasn’t so upset at the fact that he was allowing his own daughter to participate in a hunt, stealing stuff from people like it was her life, the older Winchester would have felt really proud of his daughter.

The fire was slowly surrounding the ancient skull and enveloping it with its flames until nothing was left but a pile of dust.

“Well, that was easy!” Dean admitted. “So, are we packing up and heading to North Dakota?”

“I’m… not so sure, Dean” Sam said looking at what was left of the skull. “Don’t you think it was a little too easy?”

Dean gave his brother an annoyed look: “Oh, come on! Can it be that easy just once? Easy enough to just burn, and go without at least one of us fighting the damn thing off? “

Sam sighed and started to move towards the car where Mary and Castiel had been waiting for them. Dean was surprised that the angel had decided to stay but he hadn’t said anything. To tell the truth it was unbelievably pleasant to have him around. Dean decided that the warm feeling he had was due to the fact that he felt safer having an angel of the Lord as back up.

“I mean, think about it.” Sam continued when they finally returned to the car. “It was a banshee, have you ever actually heard of any of them before?”

“Well, on TV…” Dean replied.

“I mean banshees, according to everything I’ve heard about them, were always the omens of death, not the cause if it.”

“I don’t see where you’re going with this.”

The police radio they had been listening to suddenly beeped and the voice of a police officer filled the car: “The cross of the Folwer and 12th street, found a body of a boy, sixteen years old, Christopher Rendell.”

“The cause of death?” replied the other voice

“Unknown, the guy just… just burned alive in his car.”

“Roger, reinforcement will arrive in ten minutes.”

“Son of a bitch!” Dean swore forgetting the fact that Mary was still in the car.

“Rendell, sounds familiar. Wasn’t it the name of the school principal?” Sam inquired. “May be it’s just a guy who went missing and only now has been found?”

“We’ll see when we get to the place. It’s not far away.” Dean said starting the Impala.

“We don’t need too,” Mary suddenly interjected. “I know who the guy was – I talked to him just a moment before I left the school building. And I know who did it as he was also there with me. Banshee was the wrong guess.” She sighed. “Go to the Oakford house.”

 

***  
When the car pulled next to the small house of Gary Oakford it was just after one in the morning, but the lights in the house were still on. Mary jumped out of the car and rushed to the door, starting to knock on it. Dean was trying to catch up with her, but by the time he reached the doorsteps, the door was already open.

“Agents?” Gary asked, confused. “What are you doing here? And who are you?” He looked at Mary.

“I need to talk to Daniel, it is important!” Mary implored with despair in her voice.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand! It is the middle of the night!” Gary said. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

He was standing in the doorway holding the door mostly closed and blocking the entrance the way Dean knew people do when they were trying to hide something.

“Ok, where is your son?” Asked Dean. “We really need to see him right now.”

“You can’t, he’s sick!” Gary protested.

“We don’t have time for talking” Said Castiel suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

The next moment all four of them were standing in the middle of the living room, where on a couch was laying Daniel. He looked like he was in agony, he was sweating all over his body, and it looked like breathing was difficult for him.

“Nephil!” Castiel suddenly announced looking at Daniel. “This cannot be!” the angel shouted in surprise and made a step toward the couch.

Suddenly Gary jumped in front of the couch an angel blade in his hand.

“Get the hell away from my son!” He yelled “First you took his mother, now you come for him? I will not allow it!”

“His mother fell because of him and you. She has committed one of the most terrible sins for an angel in creating this abomination!”

Mary was listening to her father and her stomach suddenly dropped. Was this what he really thought about Nephilim? Was it what he really thought about her?

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Dean interrupted. “Cas, care to enlighten us?”

But before Castiel could reply, Daniel stood up from the couch and started to laugh. The next moment Dean was flying into the closest wall, hitting it hard with his arm. Something crunched inside of him echoing through all his body with nearly unbearable pain. Dean tried to move but his body was paralyzed like something was holding him against the wall, he saw that everyone else, including Castiel was in the same position.

“It doesn’t matter.” Daniel said. “Nothing matters now!”

“Why?” Mary suddenly asked. “Why did you kill them?”

“I didn’t like them!” he replied.

“They didn’t deserve this! Please, reconsider! I know that you can still stop all of this, you can still return to a normal life!” She pleaded.

“Normal life? Is the life I live something you’d call normal? Look at me! I’m a monster! I’m ugly, I’m an outcast! And this thud and buzz inside of me… it never stops! Never stops!” Daniel clenched his hands falling to his knees, his facial expression was nothing but madness and Dean felt the grip around him weakening. He carefully moved towards Gary who’d started to slowly move next to him and picked up the angel blade Gary had dropped when he’d hit the wall.

On another side of the room Castiel got up and jumped at Daniel sending him to the ground and holding him down, his own blade in his hand. Daniel groaned and yet another wave of energy bursted out of him pushing the angel from his chest. Castiel regained his balance quickly, circling around Daniel, and preparing for his next move. Meanwhile Dean was crawling on the floor to the center of the room with the angel blade in his hand.

“Please, stop!” Mary yelled. “Please! All of you!”

But Castiel didn’t even hear her, he attacked Daniel again so both of them flied from wall to wall between the two rooms cracking them. Another wave and both of them were tumbling on the floor in the middle of the room. Castiel was back on top of Daniel, ready to strike but the next moment something invisible kicked the blade out of his hands. The angel kicked Daniel in the jaw several times but then he was pushed on his back, and Daniel’s wrapped his fingers around his neck.

Dean chose this moment to jump on the Oakford’s son. The cold blade of the angel sword easily penetrating his skin and piercing his heart. For a second everyone was silent. Daniel looked at the tip of the sword poking from his chest and then at Dean with surprise.

“The thud and the buzz…” He said suddenly smiling. “It’s stopped…”

Daniel’s huge body fell to the floor with a quiet thump. In the background Dean heard Mary yelling something, but the blood in his veins was rushing so fast that he could barely hear it. In the next second a flash of light illuminated the room forcing Dean to shield his eyes with his hand. When everything was finally over he saw the body of Daniel lying on the floor with the burned print of two wings behind his back. His father rushed to Daniel, kneeling before him and pressing the body of his son to his chest.

“I’m… so sorry.” Mary said with sorrow crossing her features.

“Get out.” Gary cried. “All of you, get out!”

***  
“So, a half-angel?” Dean inquired leaning on the hood of his car. “It sounded like you knew his mom.”

The four of them returned to the motel, Sam and Mary were in the room gathering their stuff so they could leave town tonight.

“You knew her as well.” Castiel replied. “I had no idea why Anael decided to fall. I didn’t know she had a child with a human.”

“Anael? Wait a sec, do you mean Anna?” Dean said, surprised.

“Yes. Most likely she decided to fall after giving birth to return to this man and their offspring, but miscalculated and was reborn as a human child with no memory of what she was.”

“Well, that’s a new turn of events.” Dean sighed rubbing her head. “And why is that such a terrible sin? Is god that much against interspecies relationships?”

Castiel pierced the hunter with one of his meaningful looks and said: “You saw what happened with Daniel. A grace and a soul cannot possibly live in one consciousness. They start to attempt to overtake each-other and with time it makes the Nephilim crazy. There are stories about Nephilim walking the Earth corrupted by their state of mind. Some of them tried to be good, to help people, they were heroes at the beginning, but in the end all of them went crazy. That is why God sent Raphael and Uriel to wipe them from the face of Earth. God…” Castiel paused shifting uncomfortably. “… didn’t actually care much about angels and humans engaging in sexual relationships.”

Dean sighed, the conversation was starting to take an uncomfortable turn . The major role in the discomfort was caused by Castiel shifting uncomfortably and staring aimlessly at the ground.

“I think I should go.” He finally said and in the blink of an eye he’d disappeared.

Dean turned his head and saw his brother and Mary leaving the room with the bags in their hands. Mary dropped the bag to the trunk and walked around the car settling next to Dean.

“All, right, what?” Dean asked seeing her nearly crying expression.

Mary looked at the older Winchester sadly and sighed. “I just… Daniel was a good guy, you know.”

“Who was also a blood thistly monster killing everyone that he didn’t like.” Dean corrected.

“You don’t understand!” Mary protested.

“And what is it I don’t understand?” the hunter inquired. “He was one of the things we hunt, so we did.”

“We could have talked to him, we could’ve tried…”

“No we couldn’t.” Dean cut her off. “He was killing so we had to kill him. End of story.”

“I can’t believe…” Mary shook her head. “I thought that hunters fight evil, that they bring light to people’s life by saving them. And what, now five people are still dead. Gary Oakford was left in his house with the corpse of his own son. How is that fair?”

“Fair? You wanted it to be fair?” Dean laughed sarcastically. “You wanted to see what is like to be a hunter? So there, see for yourself. Nothing about it is fair.”

Mary turned her face away from her father, wiping tears from her cheeks. She bit her lip and then nodded.

“But we still make a difference.” Sam said when he suddenly appeared from her other side.

Dean looked at his brother and daughter then walked away opening the door of the driver’s seat. “Let’s go home.” He said.


	10. Not A Time for A Wedding (part 1)

_April 2011;_

Castiel cast his eyes down to look at tickets lying before him on the table. On the middle of the ticket was a picture of a giant Ferris wheel rising above countless colorful tents and kiosks. It was printed on a sickeningly pink shade of paper and decorated with dozens of red and purple hearts of different sizes. Castiel looked at the ticket like the pitiful piece of paper had personally offended him, and then raised his eyes to give a questioning look to the older Winchester who was standing in front of him awkwardly trying to look away.

“What is it?” The angel asked.

Dean coughed trying to look anywhere but Castiel’s eyes. It looked like the time-bleached red wallpapers in Bobby’s study suddenly attracted Dean’s attention, like he had never noticed what an interesting pattern they had. “Those are tickets to go to a fair.” Dean explained, his face was slowly changing its color, until it turned into a shade of red similar to the wallpaper.

The angel glanced at the pink rectangles again and back to Dean.

“Why?” He asked.

“Well, I assumed you needed some time to relax. You know, take a day off or something.”

“I don’t exactly have time for…” Castiel poked the tickets carefully like he was trying to check that they weren’t living creatures who could turn into face-eating paper monsters and bite his finger off. “…this.”

“Oh, come on, man!” Dean finally looked at him. “It’s not like one day can change anything drastically!”

The angel fixed his gaze on Dean giving him one of his ‘I’m trying to read your mind’ looks and then sighed. “Fine…” He said “… one day.”

 

_Half an hour earlier…_

Sam had found Mary sitting on the porch leaning against one of the wooden posts that held up the roof. Two small earbuds were in her ears and her eyes were closed.

“Hey…” Sam smiled tapping her on the shoulder, causing her to open her eyes.

“Hey!” Mary replied taking the earbuds out. “You need something?”

“Actually I came to ask if you would be interested in going here.” Sam said showing her the four pink ticket flyers.

Mary looked at the tickets with amusement and disbelief. “You do remember that I’m your niece, right?” She asked.

“Yeah, that part didn’t escape my mind.” Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Anyway, Dean is coming to, so…”

“Well, now it looks suspicious. But… on other hand Dean has always secretly adored fairs.” Mary looked at her uncle challengingly, but then smiled. “I’ll go if Cas will go.” She said.

 “Are you serious?” Sam surprised. “Cas would never agree to something like that.”

“Well, it depends who asks him.” She said.

 

_Half an hour even earlier…_

Bobby tugged the brothers into the basement, and looked around before closing the door like he was afraid someone was spying on them. When he was finally satisfied with the level of privacy he turned to Sam and Dean and sighed: “I need your help.”

“With what?” Sam and Dean asked at the same time and glanced at each other, the same way they always did after saying the same thing.

“Well, you see, I got a hold of the angel-princess diary and thought that I could work some on its translation.”

“Wait, you got the future Cas’s journal?” Sam said with a surprised raise of his eyebrows. “How?”

“I call it old man’s charm.” Bobby said sarcastically. “Anyway, the thing is that I don’t have the book itself, I only have some snapshots I managed to take on my phone. Mary has no idea about this and it’s better if it stays that way.”

“So, let me guess.” Dean started. “You want us to entertain her somehow so she won’t notice what you’re doing?”

“Well, yeah, that’s exactly what I want from you idjits.”

“And how are we going to do that? After our last fiasco I don’t exactly want to take her out hunting monsters again.”

“Well then, it’s nice of good ol’ me to come prepared!” Bobby said as he extracted four pink flyers from his pocket and gave them to the brothers.

“Why,” Sam started, “why are there four of them?”

“And why the hell they look like a frigging cupid designed them?” Dean added.

Bobby looked at both them both like they were simpletons that were incapable of understanding the most basic things.

“This are fair tickets for couples.” Bobby said, moving his gaze from one brother to the other. “What? They were on sale!”

 

***

The fair was situated on an open field outside of Sioux Falls and looked more like a small village because of how massive it was. The most impressive part was how fast it was built. When Dean, Sam and Mary had been returning from Wisconsin several days ago, crossing this exact field, it was empty, and apparently four days was all it took to fill the field with hundreds of tents, rides, and of course the most impressive of all, a giant Ferris Wheel right in the middle.

Sam knew if anyone had asked Dean if he enjoyed fairs, or maybe if he liked bumper cars, the hunter would have made a most disapproving face, and replied that he wasn’t a kid, but if you happened to know Dean as well as Sam knew him, you could tell otherwise. Even if Dean’s mouth was mumbling something incoherent about stupid fairs or freaking colorful balloons all over the place, his eyes were still shining with childish glee, and when Dean was sure no one was looking at him, an absolutely sincere smile was playing on his lips. So it was clear how much the older hunter actually enjoyed being in a place like this, surrounded by the people he loved.

Another unexpected thing that made Dean smile, was the way Castiel reacted. Dean was doing his best to try and make the angel feel less tense, to make him try new things, like cotton candy, or this hit in the world of food, as Dean called it, bite sized pies. Every time the he succeeded in eliciting any sort of emotion out of the angel, he reacted like a child who had been given candy.

But the main engine of action was of course Mary. She was tugging all three of them from one tent to another, trying every single food possible until Sam was actually surprised at how all of it could fit into her stomach, and playing every game she could find.

Sam looked at the three of them with a smile. Once again he started to think about Mary being the child of Dean and Castiel, how happy they could be, even though it was bizarre to think about Dean in a relationship with another man.

Sam sighed, watching his brother interact with the angel. No wonder the idea had occurred to him. The two of them behaved like a married couple, and he was sure that anyone near them would think the same. But the more time Sam had spent thinking about it, the more uncertain he became. He had already gathered all the ingredients for summoning Balthazar to discuss the matter with him, but in the end he simply didn’t have enough proof, and it would end up being very awkward if Mary turned out to be the daughter of Dean and someone else.

Sam’s thoughts were interrupted by Castiel, who had seemed mostly unaffected by the fair atmosphere but had stopped suddenly before one of the tents, gazing into it with focus he didn’t even pay to ancient manuscripts. Sam glanced over the angels shoulder and noticed that the tent was filled with various stuffed animals and had several targets for throwing darts.

“What is the purpose of this game?” Castiel asked.

“Well, you throw darts aiming as close to the center as you can.” Dean explained.

“And will I get one of the animals if I do?”

“Well, yeah!” Dean smiled in amusement.

“I would like to try this one” the angel said.

“Wow, really?” Dean glanced at the angel with surprise but still extracted a game ticket from his wallet and gave it to the guy working the stall, receiving five darts for it.

The angel took his first dart and weighted it in his hand examining it, then threw. The dart missed the red dot by several inches, which surprised Sam since he had been sure that Castiel would be perfect at something like throwing darts.

“Ah, I see now.” The angel nodded.

The next four darts pierced the exact middle of the bull’s-eye, restoring Sam’s trust in the angel’s abilities.

“All right, that was pretty impressive! You can pick any toy from the top line.”  The guy in the tent smiled and pointed at the line with the most ginormous stuffed animals.

“I would like that bear.” The angel pointed.

The guy in the tent reached for the huge white bear with a pink ribbon on its neck and a red nose made in a shape of a heart and Sam was trying his best not to burst into laughter at his weird choice. Dean as it seemed was just as shocked.

“Here we go!” The guy smiled holding the bear out for Castiel to take.

“No, not this one…” Castiel suddenly corrected. “The one in the corner.”

With this Sam moved his eyes to a small plushy bear in a green shirt sitting in the corner separately from every other toy.

“Ughh…” the guy groaned. “I’m afraid that one isn’t the best choice. Two kids started to fight over him and tore his paw a little. Then they just dropped him on the ground and ran away.”

“I still would like to take it.” Castiel insisted.

The guy from the tent simply pulled the bear down and handed it to the angel. The next moment Castiel turned to Dean and held the toy out. The older Winchester gazed at the bear with surprise and astonishment then looked back at the angel giving him a questioning look.

“It… reminds me of you.” Castiel explained.

Now that he mentioned it, Sam noticed that in fact the stuffed bear had some features in common with his brother. The green shirt it was wearing looked like Dean’s favorite one, its fur was very similar to the color of Dean’s hair and it had dark green glass eyes.

“Umm… Thank you. I guess…” Dean mumbled accepting the unexpected gift, but still gazing at it like lit was a bomb ready to explode in his hands.

“And as I recall, fake bears make you feel cozy.” Castiel added.

Yeah. No wonder Sam was getting ideas.

 

***

The day at the fair was going by unexpectedly fast. When Dean had agreed to entertain Mary in order to give Bobby some time to work on the journal’s translation, he hadn’t expected to enjoy it so much. Mary was pretty overactive for seventeen, but the situation was balanced by the slightly awkward and very calm angel who was following them everywhere they went. Once Dean caught his brother with his gaze fixed on him. Sam was smiling, and the smile was so pure and happy that it made Dean feel something close to pride. Yes, the world was slowly going into the toilet if they didn’t stop it, yes the evil monsters were still terrorizing innocent people all over the world, and every day off Sam and Dean took was probably ending up with someone dying by evil creatures’ hands. But the fact that even now, Dean was still able to see his family happy from time to time, was making him happy too.

When Dean thought of his family he had unconsciously included the angel. For all the time Dean and Castiel had spent together, the socially awkward angel had become an integral part of the team. When Mary told them that Castiel was still hanging around, even after the Dean had a family of his own, Dean had thought it was strange at first, but then he realized how much he actually wanted it that way. He wanted to see the angel from time to time even if they didn’t need to work together to save the world. Castiel could come visit Dean, and they could watch a movie together, or do other male bonding activities like going to the bar. Hell, Dean wouldn’t even mind making the angel the godfather to his child (although he didn’t really want his daughter to be baptized or partake in any other kind of religious ceremony, especially after everything he knew about the religion).

They now sat on a picnic table in the food vendor area of the fair. None of them was particularly hungry, except for Sam who was refusing to eat anything from the stalls because the food they had was too fat and greasy for his princess tastes. Now he was munching on his usual rabbit food salad, which was just another opportunity for Dean to tease him.

“I’d like to see how you look in twenty years.” Replied Sam, pushing another piece of something green into his mouth.

“At least what we’re eating tastes good!” Laughed Mary and moved closer to her father demonstrating whose side she was on. Dean grinned like the cat that got the cream, because having someone agree with you was damn pleasant.

“And I wonder how you’ll look in five years, when all that junk food starts to gather on your hips!” Sam grimaced. “Well, twenty two actually, but you know what I mean.” Sam added.

“Whatever!” Mary laughed, sticking her tongue out at Sam. Then she excused herself to go to the restroom.

Dean glanced around and spotted an exceptionally hot woman sitting several tables away from them, glancing back at their table. She was dressed in a very bright shirt decorated with a Native American pattern and simple blue jeans. Her long chestnut hair was gathered into two braids with a red ribbon wrapped around her head and she held a small ceramic bowl that matched her shirt. Dean’s flirting instincts kicked in and he sent her one of his best smiles leaning, somewhat seductively on the table. In the distant corners of his mind something was telling him that it was wrong to flirt with someone when you came to the fair with your daughter, but his instincts were taking over as the girl stood from her table and moved toward the three of them.

But when the woman finally reached their table, Dean’s pride was stomped as she moved past him to a very confused angel, who stared at her without even blinking. For some reason Dean felt a wave of jealousy sweep over him and couldn’t decide why. It wasn’t the end of the world that a hot chick decided that not he was the most handsome guy in their company.

For a moment the two of them stared at each other without moving or saying a word, but then she smiled widely and handed her bowl to Castiel who looked at it with distrust, but then decided to carefully accept the bowl. With the corner of his eyes Dean noticed that the dish was filled with a brownish liquid that didn’t look at all pleasant. Castiel sent the hunter a questioning look but Dean simply shrugged his shoulders. The shorter man gazed at the contents of the bowl yet again and the next moment moved the bowl to his lips starting to drink it. For a split second Dean wanted to reach for his friend and knock the vessel from his hands because it was dangerous to drink random shit from strangers, but then he decided that was stupid, since the angel had his natural resistance to poisons, plus he could probably sense anything dangerous in the bowl beforehand.

The woman waited a moment, letting Castiel drink half of the liquid, then took the bowl from his hands and emptying it in several gulps, and looked at the angel smiling even wider. The next moment the she rushed toward the angel, settling herself on his lap and pressed her lips into his. Castiel squirmed trying to move backward, but the table was in his way preventing him from doing so. The angel’s eyes were wide and panicked, he grabbed the edge of the table with so much force that it cracked. In any other situation Dean would find it absolutely hilarious, but he was simply too angry for it right now. Dean had no idea what had made him feel this way but he decided to lay the blame on his own suspicions about Mary having feelings for the angel.

The woman in the bright shirt finally tore her lips from the angel. She gracefully stood up from Castiel’s lap, readjusting her hair before starting to walk away.

“What was that all about?” Asked Sam whose face showed nearly the same level of shock as Castiel’s.

The angel shook his head. “I… I don’t know.” He said “It was… disturbing.” Then he reached to the pocket of his coat. “She slipped something in my pocket.” He said.

“Probably a phone number.” Dean mumbled.

“Doesn’t look like a phone number.” Castiel said extracting a cob of corn.

“Well, that’s weird.” Sam pointed out.

Mary returned to the table to find the three of them sitting in an awkward silence. Dean and Castiel were staring in absolutely opposite directions, and Sam was moving his eyes from one to the other.

 

***

It was getting really dark. Dean was pretty sure that they had spent no more than four hours at the fair, and since they’d arrived early in the morning, there hadn’t been a chance in the universe the night could sneak up on them unnoticed. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and none of them heard anything about upcoming solar eclipses so blaming something supernatural seemed like the only reasonable explanation. Dean wanted to find a way to send Mary home, but the reporter on the radio confirmed Dean’s fear that the disappearance of the light was occurring all over the world where it was currently daytime. It seemed like every time they tried to get a day off to spend like normal people, something always prevented them. It seemed like the Winchesters were cursed. So here they were, standing in a field, as far away from the crowd as they could get, discussing their next course of action.

“Any ideas?” Dean asked.

Sam and Mary shook their heads.

“I can feel something powerful around the area.” The angel said suddenly.

“Well, just perfect!” Dean grumbled. “We can’t even spend one day as normal people!”

“I think I will go and check the area” Castiel suggested.

Dean was ready to see the angel disappearing, but the he stood on the same spot without moving. In a moment he frowned and looked around: “I… I can’t fly” He admitted.

“What? Why?” Sam asked.

“It appears that my wings are bonded.” The angel explained.

Dean groaned in annoyance. Yes, this was definitely not their day.

The four of them were torn between leaving the fair and returning to Bobby, and staying where they were to investigate. Dean knew that the older hunter was preoccupied with the translation of Castiel’s journal, but at least there they could wait and see what was going to happen and had a better chance to find information. Plus the defused angel was currently powerless, and if it happened to be the followers of Raphael, they had way more chance of defending him there. But on other hand, before Castiel lost his ability to fly he had definitely sensed something in the area, and leaving this something here was dangerous. The hunters had no idea what it could be and what it could do to the civilians at the fair.

Another factor was played by Mary since Dean wasn’t delighted at all by her presence here while they could face something dangerous. The older Winchester reached his phone in order to call Bobby so he could come and take her, but the phone didn’t have a signal.

“All, right, it’s decided.” Dean announced. “We are returning to Bobby’s and then we will think about what’s going on in here.”

Mary looked like she wanted to protest, but decided not to. In the end she knew they weren’t going to listen to any protests.

Dean started to move towards the exit of the fair followed by the others, but before he could reach his beloved car, everything suddenly turned to black as the sun disappeared fully from the sky. Dean was stunned. There wasn’t any source of light anywhere around. He made several blind steps and bumped into someone that he realized was Castiel.

“Shh, Dean, give me your hand, I will lead you to the car.” The angel whispered so close to his ear that it made Dean’s whole body shiver as the angel’s breath tickled his cheek.

“Yeah, yeah, all right!” Dean agreed trying to step away from the angel as quickly as he could. “Sam? Mary?” Dean called.

“We’re over here Dean!” Sam called from somewhere very close to his left side. “I’ve got Mary!” He said and suddenly Dean was able to see a light from Sam’s direction. The younger brother tugged his phone out of the pocked and was flashing it around himself.

“Good idea!” Dean said reaching for his own phone, releasing the angel’s hand from his grip. But instead of holding onto his hand, he simply gripped the sleeve of his coat so as not to lose him. It wasn’t a contemplated action, just something he done out of instinct to protect, without thinking. “Ok, guys,” Dean said. “The exit isn’t that far away now.”

Dean would have expected to hear others from the fair. Of course they weren’t right in the middle of it, but on a field to the side of the main action, but still, he’d seen many people sitting on the field with picnic baskets before the sun turned off. In situations like this Dean was sure all those people would start to panic, to call each-other, but no – it was as quiet as if the four of them were the only ones alive for miles around. And that couldn’t be good.

The dim lights of the phones weren’t bright enough to use as flashlights, but at least they allowed the four of them to move faster. Several more minutes passed and Dean noticed a light ahead of them. At first it looked like it was far away, but with every passing moment the light was coming closer and closer.

Dean reached for his gun from behind his belt and pulled it out. He glanced around, trying to find at least one hiding spot, but the field around him was empty for at least fifty feet and the light from their phones wouldn’t allow them to see any farther.

“Run!” Dean commanded when the light was close enough to illuminate the ground around them.

“No frigging way are we leaving.” Sam protested, stepping closer and trying to hide Mary behind his back.

Dean turned to his brother to argue but saw that his very brightly lit face was turned somewhere ahead of Dean and he looked surprised. He momentarily turned back to look at whatever Sam saw and came face to face with a woman who was standing right in front of him.

It was the same woman they had seen a while when they were relaxing near the food, the one who had given Castiel the drink from her bowl, but now she was clothed in full native regalia and glowed. Like seriously glowed, illuminating several hundred feet in all directions around her.

Dean reflexively jumped away, tugging Castiel with him since he was still gripping his sleeve.

“Don’t worry!” The woman said smiling. “I’m not here to harm you.”

“Yeah? And what’s with the missing sun and special effects?” Dean asked pointing his gun at her. Dean was pretty sure that even with the silver bullets dipped into holy water he currently had in his gun, he wouldn’t be able to harm her. But he could sure try.

“Oh, I just needed some privacy!” She explained crossing her arms.

“Who are you and what do you want from us?” Dean heard his brother’s voice behind his back.

“I have many names. But around here people call me Chuqui-llantu” She said. “And I came to take my husband with me.”

“Well, that’s peachy, but I don’t think we know anyone by that description” Dean smirked.

Chuqui-llantu didn’t respond, she only took several steps toward the angel and moved into his personal space. “He is my husband.” She said.

Dean opened his mouth to laugh and tell her that was ridiculous, but in the next moment he found himself standing in the middle of the brightly lit field next to Sam and Mary. All the formerly absent people had returned and it looked like no one had noticed anything, but Castiel was no longer there.

 


	11. Not A Time for A Wedding (part 2)

The pictures Bobby taken on his old phone were of terrible quality. The only thing helping the hunter was the fact that Castiel’s handwriting was so clear that it looked like the whole journal had been typed and printed, and not written. Bobby was sitting on his chair behind the desk in the study room. On his left were stacked several books on Enochian, and on his right was a bottle of whiskey, because it was his only helper and companion in his quest to translate from a language no human could speak. None of the human libraries had anything even slightly close to a good Enochian dictionary, so Bobby had to drive himself crazy with having to painstakingly decipher every detail himself.

After several hours spent finding all the words in the entries he _could_ look up in the dictionary, he then tried to guess what the words in between could mean. He wasn’t even sure anymore why he’d started this. Yes, he was curious, yes he knew that he and the Winchester brothers could use the information, and not sit waiting for Mary to decide it was time for them to discover something new, but other than that… Bobby sure had more important things to work on, like the mother of all for example.

His phone rang and the old hunter reached for it looking at the caller ID. Of course it was Dean.

“I’m listening.” Bobby said.

“Umm, hey Bobby!” Dean started, and by the tone of his voice the old hunter already knew that something had happened, Dean wouldn’t be calling him if everything was all right anyway, so he’d known something had happened before he even answered the call. “Would you mind checking into a Khui… Chuli…”

“Chuqui-llantu” Bobby heard Sam’s voice in the background.

“Yeah, that one!” Dean agreed.

“Do I look like your personal reference book?” Bobby asked. “Why do you need it?” He added with a sigh.

“Well,” Dean started and Bobby could tell that he was nearly in a panic even if his voice was mostly calm and even. “Castiel got married.”

Bobby needed a second to comprehend what Dean had said. At first Bobby wondered if he had misheard Dean and he had simply said something else that sounded like… what he’d thought he heard. The old hunter repeated the phrase several times in his head and decided that no, he’d heard it right. Then Bobby thought that Dean was yanking his chain, but if this was the case he’d chosen the wrong topic, because Bobby didn’t give a damn about Castiel getting married. It wasn’t of course that Bobby didn’t like the angel, it just wasn’t any of his business.

“Well, tell him congratulations, then!” Bobby finally managed.

“No, it’s not like that!” Dean protested. “He was forced into it – drank some shit from a cup of love, or whatever it was, and now he’s married.”

Bobby rubbed his forehead as the entire conversation was starting to give him a headache. “And?” He asked.

“And? The bitch took Cas somewhere against his will!”

“First, how the hell could someone do anything to Castiel against his will? And second, why do you care? Are you his mommy? Maybe he’s found happiness!”

Dean actually faltered with his response and… didn’t answer. Well, that was new! Instead the older Winchester took some air into his lungs and finally started to make sense: “All right! We were sitting by the food booths, and this Chihuahua girl came with a bowl of some crap and gave it to Cas to drink. Mary later explained that it was something like a marriage tradition, but no one knew about it when Cas was drinking it. The girl turned out to be some sort of goddess, and she de-powered him and took him somewhere against his will.” He finished in one breath.

“Well I’ll see what I can do to help you to find your angel boyfriend.” Bobby said mockingly and hung up.

And yet again the Winchesters were bringing the old hunter nothing but trouble. Bobby knew that the Dean wouldn’t even thank him for his help. He was the type of person who just believed everyone should help him, should abandon their own business to solve his problems. Bobby turned to his translation, looked at it for a moment and sighed. In a moment he found himself rising from his chair and moving toward the bookshelves to find any lore on Native American gods, because no matter how big of an ass Dean was, he still was like a son to the old hunter.

 

***

Dean was pretty sure that in any other circumstances he would be happy for a friend to get married: for example, if his friend knew beforehand that he was marrying someone, or if it wasn’t a weird goddess as a bride, or if it wasn’t Castiel. Dean’s train of thought faltered there. When he thought about it, he realized that he just didn’t like the idea of Castiel getting married. Well, of course there were many reasons for this. Like that they didn’t have time for this right now, not when the world was going to end if they didn’t stop it, and such dangerous times were not a good time for a wedding.

“Would you stop pacing already, Dean?” Sam groaned tearing his eyes from the laptop, “You’re just making it more difficult to concentrate.”

Dean was about to argue and reply that he wasn’t pacing but truthfully he had found himself in the middle of the room walking from one wall to another for no particular reason. Dean looked around awkwardly and then climbed on the bed, turning on an old looking TV.

They had left the fair and taken a single motel room as a temporary base. Bobby’s house was a good hour and a half driving distance, while this motel was so close to the fair that they could practically hear it from here.

“Are you ok?” Mary asked her father.

“As fine as I can be knowing that goddess bi… a goddess took our most reliable ally in the war against heaven and hell.” Dean complained, but a knowing smirk was the only response he received from Mary. “Whatever.” He sighed turning his attention to a commercial block on the screen.

“Were you able to find anything out?” Mary asked moving closer to Sam.

“Well, a little bit…” Sam explained. “First of all she isn’t actually a goddess, but the daughter of a god. The Sun god, to be more specific. Her story appears to be a classic star-crossed lovers scenario.”

“Anything about ganking her?” Inquired Dean who was still lying on the bed listening to their conversation.

“Not really,” Sam confessed with a sigh.

“All right then,” Dean nodded and stood up from the bed, grabbing his jacket.

“Where are you going?” Mary asked.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t sit here and wait till everything fixes itself.” Dean explained. “I’ll find a bar or something and wait there.”

With those words Dean stepped out of room and closed the door behind him before anyone had time to even open their mouths. The air outside the motel room smelled of fried meat, and a fresh bakery. In any other circumstances Dean would enjoy it, but right now it was disgusting him nearly to the point of nausea. The hunter still couldn’t understand what was going on with him and why all of the sudden he was so upset about the fact that some random bitch had taken Castiel. Of course it was absolutely natural for anyone to be worry in such situation, but Dean’s displeasure reminded more of jealousy. It was really creeping him out, even more than any monster could.

“Shit…”

Dean rubbed his face with his palm, sighing and fished the car keys from the pocket of his jacket, and making his way to the parking lot. He doubted there was a decent bar anywhere around here so he would most likely need to return to the city, but in that case he would need to leave Sam and Mary in the motel with no means of transportation. The hunter groaned in annoyance leaning on the hood of his car, swearing quietly under his breath. Then he climbed into his baby, deciding to at least take a lap or two around the area to clear his head.

Nearly all of his deleterious thoughts disappeared when Dean started the engine. Sometimes he felt like she was the only one who understood him, who could comfort him. Dean started to exit the parking lot, fixing the rear view mirror and…

“Son of a bitch!” He swore slamming the breaks as a random guy jumped right in front of the car holding his hands out.

The hunter didn’t have enough time though, and the car hit the guy with a heavy thud, making Dean nearly fly out of his seat and sending the poor bastard tumbling a good several feet. The hunter rushed out to check on the suicide jumper but was surprised to see him still standing and lacking a single scratch.

“Dude, what the hell?” Dean yelled at him in anger. “Look where you’re going!”

Dean turned to look at the front of his baby noticing that the bumper was slightly bent.

“I highly apologize.” The guy said.

He looked small and fragile and Dean found himself wondering how he’d not ended up not breaking any of the guy’s bones. His hair was dark-brown and his eyes were bright gray

“My name is Acoya-napa,” the guy continued, “And I require your help!”

 

***

The first thing after leaving the Winchesters that Castiel became aware of was the fact that he was laying on a cold marble floor, in a bright sunlit room. His first thought was that he had somehow ended up in heaven, because the surroundings reminded him of the place he used to call home. On closer inspection the angel realized that it wasn’t actually heaven, but a small room somewhere on earth. His angelic powers were still blocked and he couldn’t tell where exactly on earth he was, nor could he fly away. ~~~~

The room was small and had nothing but four walls, a floor and a ceiling, not even a single chair. It had two large open windows on opposite sides, but both of them were latticed with massive looking bars, so Castiel assumed it was most likely that he was in some sort of a prison ward. The room also had a wooden door, but it was locked and looked too thick to try breaking through.

Castiel glanced out of one of the windows, noticing a large green field surrounded by mountains on every side. From the other window he could see a sunlit terrace cobbled with white marble. The terrace led to a staircase, and surrounded with neatly cut trees and bushes, four rather large fountains were sitting in each corner of it. Castiel could hear the songs of many different birds some of which weren’t native to the part of the world Castiel was the moment before everything went blank. Several bees and butterflies were flying from one tree to the other gathering the pollen from its’ flowers. In any other circumstances Castiel would feel at peace with this place, but the fact that he was locked in a prison cell made that impossible.

“I’m not familiar with many wedding traditions, but I can’t think of any where a groom gets trapped in a cell.” The angel said calmly, not turning his head from the window.

“There are even more unpleasant traditions in the world.” A female voice said from behind the angel’s back. “It’s not like you have much choice.”

The angel turned toward the voice, spotting Chuqui-llantu standing in the middle of the room with her eyes fixed on the angel. “I always have a choice!” He said and rushed toward her.

Castiel took her by surprise, he was still a trained warrior, fast as a lightning strike. He pressed Chuqui-llantu to the wall pressing his sword to her neck.

“It’s not that difficult to kill me.” She said. “But if you do, you will never get out of here alive.” She added smiling.

Castiel pressed his blade even harder, penetrating her soft skin. A small droplet of blood rolled down her neck. The next moment some kind of force pushed him to the opposite wall.

“Calm your temper down, angel.” Chuqui-llantu said. “I just came to propose a fair trade. One favor for your freedom.”

“And how is that a fair trade?” Castiel said. “You were the one who imprisoned me.”

“You will find out later.” She smirked.

“And what if I refuse?” The angel inquired.

“In that case, you will die.”

“And what if I don’t care?”

Chuqui-llantu seized him in her gaze and continued to smile. “Then the person you love the most will fill in for you. Most likely against their will.”

Anger washed over the angel, “Don’t you dare go near him!” He warned launching toward her once again, but this time she disappeared from view, and reappearing behind him, and now it was her pushing the angel flat against the wall.

“Oh, so you actually have this loved one?” She murmured in the angel’s ear, “The older of the two brothers, isn’t it? Well, I can see why!” She chuckled. “But don’t you worry, I promise you won’t regret helping me.”

Castiel tried to break free, but realized that without his powers he couldn’t move a single inch under the pressure of Chuqui-llantu’s body. The angel groaned and said: “What do you want?”

Chuqui-llantu moved away from Castiel allowing him to move. “I need you to save my beloved.” She said.

 

***

“You need us to do what?” Dean exclaimed, glancing at the gray-eyed guy sitting in their motel room with a cup of coffee Sam had made that morning.

After the incident in the parking lot Dean hadn’t wanted to invite the unexpected guest to their motel room because Mary was inside, and if the guy was to turn dangerous and go on a killing spree, the hunter didn’t want him to be anywhere near his daughter. Unfortunately stopping Acoya from going there by himself turned out to be an impossible task.

“I need you to help me return to my bride.” Acoya-napa repeated, not paying any attention to the hunter as he stared at Mary. The girl was staring at him back and both their looks were filled with surprise and confusion at the same time.

“You guys know each-other or something?” Asked Sam who also noticed the staring contest.

“No.” He and Mary replied simultaneously. Acoya turned his head away from her, but Mary continued to stare.

“Anyway,” Dean continued. “You know that your so-called bride just forcibly married our friend, don’t you?” He asked.

“The marriage can’t be completed without her father’s blessing.” He explained.

“Her father, you mean the Sun god?” Sam asked.

“Yes, him.” Acoya nodded. “But to receive his blessing, the chosen of a daughter of the Sun must pass a series of tests.”

“I don’t understand then,” Dean pointed out. “How is that connected to kidnapping our friend?”

“It’s simple. Chuqui-llantu thinks that I’m not powerful enough to complete the tests, while Castiel, an angel, has a better chance.”

“And what,” Sam asked. “You think that the god of the Sun won’t notice the difference between you and Castiel?”

“Not if I will be the one appearing to receive the task and the angel will be the one completing it.” Acoya explained.

That moment Dean lost his control and rushed towards the guy, grabbing him by the lapels of his shirt. “You’re sick bastards, you know that? Who gave you the right to do something like that, without even asking Cas if he would agree?”

Acoya didn’t seem affected by the older Winchester’s rage. He put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and smiled warmly: “I understand, it wasn’t my idea, but hers. I wasn’t afraid of attempting the trials on my own, but she ran away, deciding to do it her way. So right now our only chance is to work together to free your friend and return me to my beloved.” He explained.

 

***

There have been many moments in Dean’s life when the hunter was angry, but this time, he thought, was beat out any other due to the fact that he was being forced into solving something that wasn’t even his problem to begin with. The hunter had no idea why all of the higher forces thought that they could do whatever they wanted with the Winchesters, without even asking for permission, like Dean and everyone he cared for were nothing but pieces on a chess board. It wasn’t the first time Dean and his brother had proven them wrong and the hunter was sure that they would be able to do it again.

After the conversation in the room, Acoya had told them that he would need to acquire several items before they would be ready to move and disappeared. Now Dean was sitting outside the motel room on the hood of the impala sipping a beer. Sam had warned him like a million times that he was drinking too often, but Dean didn’t care, because with the life he led it was impossible to deny himself alcohol.

Mary approached the car settling herself next to her father on its hood.

“It’s crazy, you know.” She whispered.

“Well, yeah, can’t argue with that.” Dean nodded.

“But we will do it, right?” She asked with hope. “We will get Castiel back, no matter what?”

Dean sighed pushing a fake smile onto his lips. Mary was worried about the angel so much that something was aching terribly inside the hunter’s chest. Dean could see how important Castiel was to his daughter, and even if he was still uncomfortably angry with this fact, he knew how much it sucked to lose someone you love.

“Of course we will.” He nodded.

Dean looked around, suddenly finding himself in the middle of a green field surrounded by mountains from every side. It was so unexpected that the hunter opened his mouth in attempt to swear, but no words escaped his mouth. Less than a second ago Dean had been standing in the parking lot next to his baby, talking to his daughter, and now he appeared here, in the middle of nowhere.

Dean glanced around himself, spotting Mary and Sam standing next to him with the same lost expression on their faces.

“What the…” He finally managed to say.

 

***

The air around the field felt clean and fresh, and it was too hot for the beginning of April, but not quite to the point that it was uncomfortable. Far away on the line of the horizon Dean could see a white palace with golden domes, and it felt like someone had just sent them into a crazy fairy tale.

“All right, we are here.” He heard Acoya saying as he appeared right next to him.

The next second Dean found himself clenching the lapels of the guy’s shirt yet again. “What the hell is this?” the hunter yelled angrily. “What, no one taught you that you’re supposed to warn a person before doing something like that?” Dean asked.

Acoya looked at him with surprise and shook his head. “No, not really.” He answered.

“All right!” Mary interrupted. “We are here anyway, so there is no point in arguing.”

Dean glanced at his daughter, but it only made him more frustrated. “Send her back!” He commanded.

“I… I don’t think I can…” He blinked.

“What do you mean you can’t?” Dean groaned.

Acoya reached for his pocket and extracted a small yellow stone demonstrating it to the Winchesters like it could explain everything. Catching their confused looks he sighed and said. “The sun stone… It’s currently drained and needs to be recharged. Then I will be able to send you back.”

“And how long will the charging take?” Sam asked.

The guy glanced at the rock like he was trying to calculate something and then back at Dean. “A day or day and a half, I believe.” He replied.

“Just perfect! That’s exactly what we need!” Dean sighed letting Acoya go.

“Are you guys coming, or what?” Dean suddenly heard Mary saying. When he looked towards the voice of his daughter he saw that she had already started to walk toward the white palace, not paying any attention to Dean’s disagreement.

 

***

The spires of the palace were getting closer and closer with every minute they spent hiking towards it, Dean was surprised by this, because at the start the palace had seemed many miles away.

Even with all the anger Dean was feeling, he couldn’t deny how breathtaking the palace was. The highest spire reached nearly to the clouds, and seemed to be touching the sky itself. The whole construction was made of white marble, and decorated with a metal that looked like gold.

“Are we even on earth?” he asked.

“Yes,” Acoya replied. “We are currently in Peru, not far away from Machu-Picchu.”

“Wait, why have I never heard about this place then? And why doesn’t the palace look anything like Machu-Picchu architecture.” Sam inquired.

“I really can’t explain exactly.” The guy said, “The palace is usually invisible to outsiders and warded very well.”

After several more minutes of traveling they passed a blooming garden and reached the main entrance to the palace. The main gates looked enormous, made of dark wood and engraved with a golden pattern of curving tree branches with a giant golden sun in the very middle. Before the gate stood two guards in light golden armor, which was barely covering their chests and white skirts, which in Dean’s opinion made them look ridiculous.

“So, how are we going to get through?” Sam asked.

“Don’t worry. Just leave it to me.” He said and started to approach the gates.

 

***

“Nice plan!” Dean grinned sarcastically as he was forced on his knees by two guards before a figure cloaked in a golden dress.

“Well, we did get through the gates!” whispered Acoya, his tone unaffected.

Dean glanced away from the unwanted ally and concentrated his attention on the figure before them. The man he saw was dressed in a long tunic embroidered with golden thread. His skin was dark and his head was bald, he was sitting on a giant golden throne, which looked more like a chariot with two giant wheels on each side of it, and he was sizing up the four arrivals with his amber eyes.

Dean tried to straighten up for a better view but was forced back to his knees by one of the guards, the next moment the man before them gestured the guard to let go allowing Dean and the others to stand up.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” The man on the throne smiled. “The famous Winchester boys! And you Acoya, the kidnapper of one of my beloved children!” Then he turned his attention to Mary and raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know who you are, but can see that you did not come from this world.” He gracefully stood from his throne coming closer to the girl.

Dean stepped forward moving in between the weird guy in a dress and his daughter. “Don’t…” he warned.

Dean expected the man to shove him away, but instead he smiled even wider: “A father, I see!” he said.

“And you…” Dean heard Sam speaking, “must be Tawa, the Sun god.”

“Tawa, Helios, Ra, Amaterassu, Khors - I have many names. But yes, Sam, you’re right. I am the Sun god.”

“Well, fancy meeting you,” Dean grinned. “You see, it happened that Acoya over there decided to try the challenges to propose to your daughter...”

Tawa turned his attention back to the older Winchester interrupting him in the middle of the speech: “Your heart is filled with fear of me, but your tongue is still sharp and ill-mannered. What an interesting thing you are!”

“Hey, the only **_thing_** here is you!” Dean protested and suddenly received a sharp elbow to his ribs from his own daughter.

“I want to apologize for the behavior of my father.” She said bowing her head. “Sometimes he can be difficult”

“Well, then maybe he just needs a good lesson?” The Sun god proposed with a knowing smirk.

  1. I mean no harm to any of you!” Tawa finished bringing his hands up. “Servants, prepare a good dinner for our guests! And find this angel of theirs, my arrogant daughter thought that I could harm him instead of introducing us to her spouse to be!”



On the corner of his eyes Dean noticed how Acoya tensed at the last words of the Sun god. So, Tawa had already known about Castiel and their plan, and everything turned out to be more complicated than they expected. Well, it’s not like it was the first time things went not according by a plan.

***

Half an hour later Dean found himself in a room which looked like the suite in a six star hotel. Although Dean had never been in anything better than four stars (you just can’t bring some women in a moldy motel and expect them to feel comfortable enough to have a good time), and though he wasn’t sure if six stars even existed, he was certain that his rating was right. The room was made of cold white and pink marble, and all the walls were covered in rich tapestries. Several animal pelts were lying on the floor, and this time Dean was certain that the pelts were real. In the middle of the room there was a large bed with a silk canopy above it.

Dean moved around the room to a hardwood bureau examining the objects standing on its surface. First the hunter spotted a small ceramic box with several small holes in it. The box smelled like roses, so the hunter opened it, and noticed that it was filled with red dust. He sniffed it, accidentally inhaling some of the dust and sneezed, then returned the box to the bureau and picked up one of the small golden statuettes, bringing it closer to his eyes - it was a miniature portraying a battle between a ram and a tiger. Not thinking too much about it Dean returned the statuette to its rightful place in his pocket.

“Jeez, man, this place is awesome!” exclaimed Sam who appeared in the doorframe of Dean’s room. His own room was right next door.

“I would still feel safer in a motel.” The older brother said. “Where’s Mary?”

“She decided to try one of those marble baths in her room, she’ll be fine!” Sam reassured.

“Well, unless someone changes his mind and she gets attacked right there, where we can’t protect her!” Dean protested.

“Dean, relax! If they wanted to kill us, they would do it right away. It’s not like Tawa didn’t have the means.”

“So, what, now you’re perfectly fine with our situation? You think we need to get our guard down and go with the flow?”

“No, of course not,” Sam entered fully into the room closing the door behind him and approached the bed taking a seat. “What I’m trying to say, that we still have no idea where Castiel’s at and we can’t do anything before we find him. For now we can pretend to be a bunch of grateful guests and attend the dinner to survey the surroundings.” Sam explained.

“Yeah, I just didn’t really enjoy attending a pagan dinner the last time. Cause if you don’t recall it was us who were supposed to be eaten!”

“Ok, and what is your plan, then?”

Dean sighed reaching for the inner pocket of his jacket and extracted his phone. “We need to find a way to contact Bobby.” He proposed opening the small gray device and looking at its screen. Surprisingly the phone had two lines of signal and the message under the clock was saying ‘Welcome to Movistar’, “The hell is Movistar?” Dean inquired with a hint of amusement in his voice.

“A local network, I suppose.” Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Although I wouldn’t recommend calling right away before we gather more information – it can get pricey.”

Dean nodded in an agreement and returned the phone to the pocket. “So, looks like we have nothing else to do, but wait.” He concluded.

 

***

There weren’t many ways to get Dean Winchester to the level of anger he was at for the past couple of hours, there also weren’t many ways to improve his bad mood. Good food though, was conveniently in category two, so when the three of them had finally been invited for dinner, and he had smelled the whole bouquet of aromas wafting in from the main chamber, and making his stomach growl in anticipation, he had almost forgotten where they actually were.

The room itself was filled with tables holding all kinds of food starting from roasted whole pigs with the classic apple in their mouths, and ending with, what attracted Dean the most, bacon cheeseburgers.

“I decided to bring some of the food you enjoy the most.” Explained Tawa as though he was reading the hunter’s mind.

“Well, thanks for that…” Dean replied with distrust. The food he had at the fair was a fading memory, and Dean was really hungry, but he still tried to be careful in front of enemies, so he was trying to suppress the urge to rush to the tables and stuff his mouth until he couldn’t move.

“Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned.” The Sun God sighed. “If I wanted to kill you, I would simply slit your throat. Poisons aren’t my forte.”

Dean looked through the chamber yet again. There were several servants running around the tables carrying trays with drinks to people sitting behind the tables and eating, not even paying any attention to the Winchesters. Dean hadn’t the slightest clue about who those other quests might be: They were all of different genders, ages, races, styles of clothing– it looked like someone had just picked a whole bunch of random people from all around the world to fill this room up; some of them didn’t even look human, with their lifeless white eyes and sharp teeth. In each corner of the chamber stood the motionless and quiet guards, nearly invisible, but never the less present. Chuqui-llantu and several other women were sitting next to the host, looking nervous. Neither Castiel nor Acoya were here.

“Not exactly the place I wanted to spend Saturday evening…” Dean whispered to his brother and daughter as the three of them moved to the furthest end of the room, trying to find spots as far away of the others as possible. “We need to plan our way out.”

“We still need to find Cas, our hands are tied for now.” Sam hissed in reply.

“Speaking of the angel…” Mary hummed in amusement pointing to the doorway they came from.

There, led by several other guards, both of the missing men entered the room, making Dean nearly choke on the piece of hamburger he’d managed to cram into his mouth a moment ago. Both Castiel and Acoya were bare-chested, wearing similar light brown pants held on their hips by a simple rope, and nothing else.

Dean’s eyes unintentionally traced Castiel’s lean but surprisingly muscular body from his neck and arms, to his chest, and then down to his stomach. Dean suddenly started to feel breathless looking at the light of torches dancing on the skin of his friend. Dean had never expected the angel wearing a body of an average guy who sold ad time for radio, to be built so well. He distantly felt a single droplet of sweat rolling down his neck as his eyes moved lower down his stomach and… Dean nearly jumped from his place as he realized the way he had been looking at his friend less than a second ago. Panic enveloped him, making him sick to his stomach. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Acoya smirking at him, before he turned his head back to Tawa.

“You ok?” Sam asked rising his eyebrow.

“Fine!” Dean snapped hoping his brother wouldn’t push his questions any further. Hoping he didn’t notice the way Dean had been looking at the angel.

Dean hurried to busy his mouth with another bite of his burger - stuffing himself to oblivion seemed right now like a best idea in the world.

“An interesting occasion brought us all together today.” Tawa started. “Today not one, but two competitors decided to try their luck in winning the hand of one of my beloved daughters! As tradition demands both of them will need to face a number of challenges to reach this goal.”

“Wait a second” Sam interrupted suddenly. “You already know everything that happened, you know he doesn’t want to be involved, why do you still want Castiel to participate?”

“Exactly!” Dean joined his brother, indignant because it wasn’t their problem anymore. “Let this Acoya guy do all the challenges, or whatever you have in mind and let us go!”

Tawa looked at the both of them with a smile, pushing a green grape into his mouth. “Well, I understand your concern, but if I simply let you go, it would be less interesting.”

“Really?” Mary said surprised. “You _do_ understand that if both of them participate, Cas can simply lose intentionally, so we would go home anyway, don’t you?”

“And that is why you needed to finish listening first, before interrupting.” The god sighed. “You didn’t hear the most interesting part yet! Whoever wins the competition by completing all of the challenges first, will _have_ to marry my daughter and stay with us forever. The losing participant…”he paused looking at Castiel and Acoya, “…will die.”

_To be continued..._

 

 

 

 


	12. Not A Time for A Wedding (part 3)

“You’re the most arrogant being I have ever known.” Castiel bit out in annoyance. “The word ‘arrogant’ doesn’t even start to describe it, actually…” He sighed, looking at his charge who was walking beside him with a cocky grin on his face.

He and Dean had been walking through the dense tropical forest for over an hour already, in an attempt to find any clues for the first challenge, but the only thing they’d had to face so far were mosquitoes who would have eaten Dean alive if not for the help of Castiel, who might be drained, but was still capable of something as minor as influencing insects to ignore a very appetizing meal.

“Hey, cheer up!” Dean slapped his friend on the shoulder, thankful that the angel was allowed to wear his usual attire. “Now at least we have a chance to get out of here, you know, all of us!”

“Or we both die, instead of only me dying in the case that Acoya wins.” The angel grumbled.

“Hey, I’m trying to stay positive here!” Dean protested.

“Yes, after doing the stupidest thing out of all the stupid things you have ever done!”

Dean gave the angel an annoyed look but didn’t reply. To tell the truth, Castiel was actually right. Dean had no idea what kind of bug had bit him yesterday, but after Tawa revealed that the challenges would end with either Castiel staying forever, or dying, he simply hadn’t been able to contain himself. He had stood from his place, rushing toward his friend and had volunteered to join the challenges to try and win Castiel’s freedom.

“Yeah, maybe it was,” Dean finally agreed, “but I’ll be damned if I’ll just leave you here.”

Castiel suddenly froze in place, looking at Dean with surprise. “Why?” He asked.

“Why? Really?” Dean laughed. “Well, I dunno, maybe because defeating Raphael and the Mother of all without you is gonna be a bitch of a task,” Dean noticed how a distinct trace of disappointment crossed Castiel’s features when he said this, “or maybe it’s because you are my friend and I care about you getting stuck in a place like this, or even worse, dying.” He added more seriously.

A nearly imperceptible smile appeared on Castiel’s face. “Dean…” he whispered quietly, stepping closer into the hunter’s personal space.

“Umm… Cas?” Dean tried to step back, but was stopped by the angel’s hand grabbing his shoulder, making the hunter feel slightly dizzy and weak on his knees. “Ca…”

But he never got the chance to finish because Castiel silenced him by pressing the palm of his free hand over his mouth. “Did you hear that?” The angel asked, looking around.

Dean froze, trying to listen. At first he could hear nothing but the wind rustling around the treetops, but then he understood that this was exactly what had alarmed the angel. Less than a minute ago the forest was filled with bird songs, the trill of cicadas, and even the occasional whoops of small primates, but now it was so quiet that the hunter felt goose bumps raise on his skin.

“We need to be very careful.” The angel warned taking his palm away from Dean’s face.

“Dude, it’s just a goat!” Dean said casually, reaching for the bow he was given.

Dean moved further into the forest holding his bow aloft. Although a shotgun would have made him feel more comfortable, growing up in a hunting family had made him familiar with most any type of weaponry, so using a bow wasn’t a problem. Castiel, even if his grip on the weapon was correct, on the other hand looked uneasy without his sword.

Dean slowly moved forward, listening to every sound. In less than a minute he distantly heard a crack of a small branch, like someone had stepped on it. After a few more seconds he heard a similar crack from the opposite direction.

“Looks like there are a bunch of goats around here,” Dean smiled, “gotta be an easy task.”

“Dean, it’s a ram, not a goat.” The angel corrected.

“Big difference.” He dismissed, pulling the string and shooting an arrow at the source of the sound. The arrow hit something with a soft thud, like it was penetrating flesh, and the bushes started to rustle.

Dean expected the injured animal to start running away so they could track it easily by the blood it would start to loose, but instead the creature rushed towards the human, roaring in pain and anger.

The only time Dean had seen anything like this before was in the Ice Age movie he watched with Ben: a large feline jumped gracefully out of its hiding place starting to close the distance between itself and the two of them. Its coat was light brown, similar to a lion, each paw ended with deadly looking claws, and its jaw was equipped with large fangs reaching lower than its chin.

The hunter reached for the second arrow shooting the saber-toothed cat once again, this time aiming for the neck. The third arrow came from Castiel’s direction. The cat fell on the ground, shaking and hawking up blood, and then it went absolutely still.

Dean lowered his bow, but the next moment another cat appeared from the bushes. And then another came from a different direction, then a third, and a fourth – it seemed there was no end of those things.

The hunter took a step backward eyeing the increasingly numerous animals. “Run!” he commanded.

The moment Dean turned to run, the whole pride rushed after him and the angel. Dean thought he was a goner for sure, because he didn’t have a single chance of outrunning the predators, he felt them getting closer with every second. The next instant Dean tripped on the root of a tree falling to the ground, and starting to tumble down the slope of a hill.

***

Mary was sitting on the edge of the bed in Sam’s room watching her uncle moving methodically from one corner of the room to the other with a phone in his hand, reaching it up to the ceiling. The phone didn’t have any signal which meant they didn’t have any connection to the outside world.

“The satellite probably moved out of reach or something.” Sam sighed finally after ten minutes of trying to find a corner with even a smidgen of signal. “It worked yesterday in Dean’s room.”

It did. But today Sam had checked all of the rooms they had access to and it was useless. They would have tried outside of the guest wing of the palace, if they were allowed to go anywhere else. Of course Tawa tried to convince them that they were guests here, and could feel absolutely free, except that they couldn’t leave, or wander aimlessly around the palace. Tawa called them guests, Mary on the other hand would call them ‘captives with better than usual accommodations’.

“The worst part is that we’re absolutely cut off, and we can’t help Dean.” Sam sighed, dropping on the bed on the opposite side of Mary. “I don’t even have the internet to try and dig up anything on their current challenge.

Earlier in the morning Dean, Castiel and Acoya had been given their first challenge – to track and hunt down a golden ram living somewhere in the jungle north of the palace. Mary still wondered what a ram would do in jungle since their natural habitats were rocky slopes of mountains and not tropical forests. On the other hand nothing in this area seemed very true to reality, so a ram wandering around the jungle might not be that weird after all.

“Dean is still a hunter.” Mary said. “Granted he mostly hunts werewolves and vampires and other supernatural things, but I think he has a really good chance.” She encouraged.

“Yeah, he’s only competing against an angel and a demigod.” Sam shook his head, bringing his hand up to rub the bridge of his nose like he had a headache.

“Sam, I’m still not sure about Acoya, we can’t exactly tell what he is.” She replied before suddenly realizing her mistake.

As a Nephil Mary possessed many angelic abilities. One of them was the ability to see through a human body, being able to look at a person’s soul the same way angels could. She could see demons’ true faces, could understand if a person was a shifter or a vampire or even an angel. But when she looked at Acoya he saw nothing but a human and if she had met him in any other circumstances she would have never even notice anything off, but Acoya had been hit by a car pretty hard and hadn’t even gotten a single scratch, he had talked about gods and angels like he had been around for centuries. So Mary had dug deeper in the motel room yesterday, trying to look through him, but she saw nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, she had seen perfectly that Acoya had been blocking her.

“What do you know about it?” Sam asked. “I mean I saw you staring at him in the motel like you knew him.”

“Huh…” Mary blinked, trying to come up with something believable to explain it away.

“Mary…” Sam looked her right in the eyes, “I think it’s a good time to tell us the whole truth. Otherwise we won’t be able to help.”

Mary wanted very badly to tell Sam the whole truth. In fact, out of all the people around, her uncle would be the only one who could understand her, who could even help her. But not right now, not here, where someone could listen to their conversation.

“It’s just… “Mary finally nodded. “Do you remember Cas saying he can’t look through me?” She asked receiving a nod from her uncle, “the thing is I can feel it when someone is doing it to me. And I felt him doing so. But when he found that he couldn’t see anything, he wasn’t surprised. He looked like he knew why.”

Mary didn’t mention that she was scanning him too, but at least she wasn’t lying.

“Well, maybe he’d heard about this blocking technique or whatever it is.”

“Sam… It’s not exactly a technique, more of a spell. The point is that the spell has angelic origins, and it’s so rare, that most of the angels don’t even know about it.”

Sam blinked listening to his niece carefully and nodded: “and he talked about angels very casually, while all the other pagan deities despise them. So, does that mean…”

Sam never finished his sentence because his phone suddenly started to ring. He rushed to pick it up and saw Bobby’s caller ID.

***

Dean woke up in a very dark place feeling his head aching like someone had hit him pretty hard. He tried to rise from the cold damp floor he was laying on but his body refused to comply.

“Shh...” he heard Castiel’s voice next to him. “You should take it easy.”

Dean groaned, not giving up his attempt to stand, he opened his eyes, trying to look around himself, but it was too dark, although according to the smell of moss in the humid air, he could assume that it was some sort of a cave.

“What happened?” He asked his friend as he felt a pair of strong arms wrapping around his waist helping him get up.

“You fell into a crack in the ground and hit your head. I was able to heal the concussion, but it looks like I didn’t have enough power to take all of the pain away.” The angel explained.

The memories started to slowly return to Dean, he remembered the palace, the Sun God, the challenges, their escape from the saber-toothed lions. The hunter took a small step closer to his friend, stepping on something that made a loud crack, he fumbled forward falling into angel’s arms.

“What was that?” Dean asked trying to regain his balance and separate himself from Castiel’s embrace.

“Your bow…” The angel clarified still holding Dean tight against his body.

Breaking the bow meant loosing the first challenge because they couldn’t exchange weapons to help each other, since it would be viewed as cheating, and they would be disqualified, which in its turn meant death. “Shit…” Dean whispered.

“It was already broken when you fell here.” Castiel explained.

“Great. Just great. Any ideas of how to get out?”

“We don’t need to get out.” Castiel said. “We are where we are supposed to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have a lighter?”

“Matches,” The older Winchester nodded and reached for the pocket of his jeans, extracting small rectangle and passing it to his friend.

Dean heard the angel lighting the match, illuminating the small area of the cave they were standing in, the next moment two rows of torches lit up, finally making it possible for the hunter to look around. Dean’s eyes were momentarily attracted to a large gate no further than twenty feet away from them, the gate was made of two stone slabs with the golden head of a ram carved in its surface. They were built into a stone wall in a really large cave, with high ceilings covered in stalactites, and when the hunter looked up he could see many bats starting to move, disturbed by the unexpected source of light.

“You think it’s the place?” Dean inquired, finally managing to stand on his own feet.

“Most likely,” the angel replied starting to move toward the gate.

The hunter followed his friend until they reached the slabs. They looked immovable and Dean wasn’t even sure if it was possible to open it. From the right side of him, Castiel started to palpate the carving of the ram head with his fingers, tilting his head in a sign of concentration. A second later his fingers moved to the side of one of the slabs and pressed on something. The ground started to shake nearly sending the hunter back to the ground, but somehow he managed to stay upright. Disturbed bats started to squeak loudly flying off the ceiling and disappearing somewhere in the far end of the cave as the two large stone pieces started to move apart opening a passage way into another room.

“Stay behind me.” The angel commanded reaching for his bow and stepping into the next section of the cave.

“Like I have any other choice.” Dean huffed, following his friend.

The next room was already lit with several torches and looked even larger than the previous one. It was absolutely empty except for a pedestal in the middle of it with a ginormous looking ball of golden fur laying on it.

The moment the two friends entered the room, the ball of fur moved and turned its horned head towards the direction of the intruders.

“That’s the biggest fucking goat I’ve ever seen.” Dean whistled in awe.

The golden ram was watching the hunter and the angel carefully, but otherwise not moving. Dean could have sworn that looking in the animal’s eyes, he could feel the intelligence behind the crystal of its dark irises.

“Stop staring at the thing,” Dean whispered. “Kill it already.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because in the next moment the hint of intelligence disappeared from the creature’s eyes, to be replaced by fear and madness. It stood from its pedestal gazing at the intruders and breathing furiously. It started to stomp the ground with its front hoof, and then charged, making Dean and Castiel jump in different directions. Missing the two friends, the ram hit a wall of the cave with its horns, making a cluster of stalactites fall to the ground.

Dean’s whole body ached as he fell face first on the ground, but pain was the last thing he cared about at the moment. One of the stalactites had landed just a foot away from Dean, and cracked into several large chunks. Dean tried to move away from the shards, but he was too slow. One of the shards landed on his feet, trapping him under its weight. Dean tried to get free, but it was useless, meanwhile, behind his back he heard the ram getting ready to charge again.

An arrow from Castiel’s side pierced the air, hitting the flank of the animal, but that didn’t even scratch it. Dean turned his head toward the angel, noticing him notch another arrow to his bow.

“Get away from him, he is not armed!” Castiel warned shooting another arrow. Although the second arrow couldn’t penetrate the golden coat either, it did the trick, forcing the ram to divert his attention from Dean to the angel. Castiel managed to reload the bow once again before the giant animal charged sending Castiel flying several feet.

“Cas!” Dean yelled, concerned that no human could survive such a hit. Of course Castiel was not human, but the hunter couldn’t help but worry anyway.

The room shook once again and Dean heard a crack from above. He raised his eyes to the ceiling, spotting a very large stalactite shaking dangerously above his head. Dean tried to move away once again, but the rock on his feet was immovable.

The angel meanwhile had risen from the floor, but the ram seemed to have no intention of letting him go. Once again the creature started to stomp the ground with its hoof, exhaling steam out of its nostrils. The angel shot once again, aiming now for the creature’s eye, but the ram moved his head effortlessly before the arrow reached its target.

“Hey!” Dean suddenly heard from another side of the room. He turned his head spotting Acoya who picked a up a rock from the ground and sent it flying into the ram. The rock, it seemed was more effective, and the ram lost any kind of interest in the angel, switching its full attention to the gray-eyed man. “Castiel, aim where the fur doesn’t protect it!” Acoya yelled at the angel.

Castiel nodded preparing his bow, but the ram got on its hind legs to hit the ground with its front ones. The cave shook as the massive hooves touched the ground, but none of the standing men were affected by it. Unfortunately Dean couldn’t say the same about the stalactite above his head. It cracked once more and started to fall down.

Dean closed his eyes preparing for the worst.

“Castiel, shoot!” the hunter heard Acoya’s command. “Castiel!”

A pair of familiar hands wrapped around Dean’s torso, and the next moment he found himself ten feet away from the place where the stalactite had landed. Castiel fell to the floor next to him, breathing heavily and shaking. His face was facing the ground and his eyes were shut.

Dean placed a hand on the angel’s shoulder, and returned his attention to the other man, who met his gaze with something like childish happiness in his eyes. Then Acoya smiled, reaching for his bow but not an arrow, and started to pull the string. The moment the bow was fully drawn, a glowing bolt appeared in it. Acoya shot the moment the animal started another charge. The white glowing arrow reached the exact middle of the creature’s forehead passing through the skull like it was incorporeal and disappeared from the view.

The ram stopped still.

Dean was sure that the creature would fall dead any moment, but the ram looked around the cave as though surprised, and the intelligence in its eyes suddenly returned.

“I didn’t kill it,” Acoya explained, walking to the injured hunter and his friend, but was stopped by the golden animal who pressed its nose to the Acoya’s arm.

The gray-eyed man gasped in surprise turning his attention back to the creature. “It… cannot be…” He whispered reaching to the ram’s snout with his fingers. The creature closed its eyes sniffing now over the men’s face, then suddenly it started to glow and decrease in size, changing its shape to the point that it started to look like a very familiar woman.

“Hey, are you all right?” Acoya asked the daughter of the sun.

The girl leaned on her lover’s torso kissing him gently on the neck. Then she turned her face to the hunter and the angel “we need to talk,” she said, “all of us.”

***

“Where have you been?! I’ve been calling you since yesterday!” Bobby yelled on the other end of the phone.

The signal was terrible, it was too quiet and mixed with white noise but at least it was something.

“Bobby!” Sam exclaimed glad that the old hunter was finally able to reach them. “It’s a long story, everything is fine… for now.”

“Long story, huh? Well I have time!”

Sam scratched his forehead thinking about telling Bobby all the details, but then he imagined his foster father’s face when he got the bill and decided against it.

“We are in Peru in the palace of the Sun god, trying to get Castiel out of here.” He explained quickly.

“All right, so, I take it you managed to find the angel?”

“Yes, but right now he’s doing the challenges and…”

Sam didn’t finish his sentence as he got interrupted by the old hunter: “Challenges? Listen to me boy, you need to get out. Faster is better!”

“Yeah, but…”

“Don’t feed me butts, you have to get out! If I understand it right, those challenges are nothing but a trap. No one has ever been able to pass them, you hear me? No one!”

Sam gulped. “Ok, ok… But we need a plan, we need a weapon. Did you by any chance figure out what can harm the Sun god?”

“Yeah, in fact I did.” Bobby announced. “heliolite, it should be able to harm him…”

“Heliolite? You mean a stone? Bobby?”

Sam never got a response back as the signal started to fade away and the call disconnected. With a sigh he returned the device to his pocket and looked around the room. So, Tawa had never intended to let any of them go, and all of it was just a trap. They had to find Dean and Castiel and figure a way out and soon.

“Heliolite?” Mary asked. “Isn’t that just another name for sunstone?”

“I believe so.” Sam confirmed. “And in this case we even know where to get one.” He said recalling the moment Acoya transported them here – he’d used an amulet made of sunstone.

“Now I only wonder what the chances are to get to him in time and the likeliness he would agree to help us are.”

“Umm,” she replied, looking behind the hunter, “why don’t you ask him?”

Sam turned on his heel and saw Acoya standing right behind him. The hunter opened his mouth to tell him not to come up behind people like that, but he stepped forward, grabbing Sam by his shoulder, and Mary by her hand. The next moment they were no longer in the brightly lit room.

***

Dean approached the gates of the palace displaying a large hoof that he held in his raised hand. In the other hand he held a lock of golden fur. The guards sized him up, and Dean could see a trace of surprise on their faces.

“The golden ram has been defeated.” Dean announced in a serious tone. “Let me in!”

The guards were not sure how to react, but finally started to open the gate.

Dean walked down a long corridor leading to the main hall trying to ignore the wave of heat that washed over him as he stepped inside. It felt like someone had turned on a heater, making him start to sweat within a few minutes. Dean didn’t remember it being this hot the day before, so perhaps Tawa was preparing another trap for them? Or maybe he simply didn’t expect Dean to return and hadn’t had the chance to make the accommodations more comfortable. Dean clenched tighter into the hoof, trying to gain more confidence in the plan he and the others had come up with, and remembered suddenly where this hoof came from. The hunter fought off the unpleasant feeling in his stomach as the picture of Chuqui-llantu tearing off a nail from her hand played in his head. That had to be painful.

Tawa looked at the older Winchester not even trying to hide his surprise. Then his eyes descended to the hoof in Dean’s hand.

“The rest of the body is back in the cave where I fought it.” Dean announced throwing the hoof and the lock of ram fur to the sun gods feet.

“It is not possible for a human to defeat it.” Tawa’s expression relaxed, as he suppressed his surprise. “You do know that I will be able to find out if it was really you who killed it?”

“I’m perfectly aware.” Dean nodded with a smirk. “But to determine that you will need to send someone to the cave to bring the body in. It was too heavy for a mere human to carry.”

Tawa looked at the hunter with distrust, but motioned the guards to go. Three out of five men standing in the room bowed their heads and left. Of course it wasn’t enough, and Dean for sure couldn’t take down the two left ones if he was alone. But Dean wasn’t.

“So, the first challenge is over.” The hunter smiled, “I’m assuming I can rest up for the second one?”

“I suppose it would be wise.” The Sun god nodded with a smile.

“But… first, allow me to ask you a question.” Dean started. “What kind of sick bastard would do something like that? Would turn his own daughter into a goat?”

“I have no idea what are you talking about!” Tawa growled angrily.

“Oh no, you do have an idea… I might not be the most educated person in the world, but I was able to dig up some info on pagan gods. You see, The Sun god was supposedly the most just pagan god in existence, you can’t kill people for fun, not if you don’t have a reason for it.” Dean was speaking, trying to look as casual as possible. His devotion to the practice of sarcasm was paying off, Tawa was getting more and more angry with every word. “But…” Dean pointed his finger up into the air. “What if the one performing the challenges went to hunt a supernatural creature, but instead killed your own daughter? A very good maneuver, even if we survived the fight, you could still blame her death on us.”

“That’s enough!” Tawa shouted standing up from his throne. “It is true, that I don’t kill people without a reason, although I consider making me angry  a very good one. Let it be said, Dean Winchester, that you’re the first mortal who’s managed it. Guards!”

The next moment Dean heard a familiar rustle of wings and Castiel stepped up to the hunter’s side, meanwhile two glowing arrows pierced the air hitting simultaneously both of the guards and making them drop their spears. They looked awkwardly at each other, and in the next moment, to Dean’s great surprise, the two guards rushed toward each other for the most epic gay make out session imaginable.

“Sorry, it’s the best I can do!” Dean heard Acoya apologizing behind his back. “Beloved, close the doors!” The gray-eyed man commanded and Dean noticed all of the doors leading to the room started to shut one by one.

Dean meanwhile rushed to the Sun god, holding a wooden pole with a tip made of sunstone – one of the three pieces they broke out of the stone Acoya had in his possession.

“You think, you can take _me_ down?” Tawa yelled moving towards the older Winchester.

With a wave of his hand he knocked the pole out of Dean’s hands, and then grabbed Dean by the lapels of his jacket with one hand, and starting to punch his face with another. Dean wasn’t surprised at how hard the punches were. He still had a headache after falling into the cave, and now he started to feel like he was about to lose it and fall unconscious. Castiel chose this moment to jump on Tawa with the sword in hand, he managed to stick the blade through the god’s neck, but it didn’t even slow Tawa down. He stopped hitting Dean and waved his hand at the angel instead of throwing him to the opposite wall.

“You think you’re smart? You have no idea how many worshipers I still have, you don’t know how powerful I am!” Tawa grinned turning his attention back to Dean. “You think that just because you have some success killing minor gods you’re ready for any of us?” He asked.

“As long as he’s not alone!” Mary replied in place of her father.

Dean turned his head and saw his daughter standing the corner of the room holding a bow with a sunstone arrow notched up – that was the second piece they’d crafted.

At first Tawa floundered, but then suddenly a smile crossed his face.

“Are you going to shoot me?” He asked mockingly, suddenly dropping Dean’s lapels and allowing him to nearly fall to the ground. “I’m waiting!” The god laughed holding his hands up in mock defeat.

Mary’s bow was drawn and aimed right at Tawa’s chest, her posture looked straight, but her hands were shaking.

“What is it girl? You can’t do it, can you?” Tawa mocked. “Or don’t you know how a bow works?”

Mary clenched her teeth, shaking even more. She may not have had a clue how to assemble guns, but Dean could see that her hold on the wooden weapon was perfect, everything about her stance and grip made it obvious that she knew how to use it. Mary just… wasn’t shooting.

“Little girl…” The pagan god shook his head. “I have no idea who you are or where you came from, I can’t see it even with all the power I possess. But I don’t need powers to see that you’re no threat to me. A warrior who can’t kill should not come to the battlefield.” He laughed and stepped towards Mary, raising his hand.

Another arrow flew through the room from the opposite side. This time it was Sam. The arrow easily pierced the flesh of the god’s body, painting his golden tunic with red blood, which started to rush out of the wound rapidly. Tawa only had time to turn his head to look where the arrow came from before falling to his knees on the ground and bursting into flames. And that was piece number three.

***

Dean never thought he could be so happy to inhale the familiar air of the northern states, still too chilly in the second week of April. All six of them stood on the edge of the forest looking at a field, in the middle of which were rising the domes of colorful tents, and the machinery of various rides.

“I want to thank you for your help.” Acoya bowed his head addressing the four of them. “Without you I would never have had the chance to be with my beloved.” He reached out to Chuqui-llantu’s hand taking it in his own.

“I’m very sorry that we caused so many troubles for you, but we didn’t have a choice.” She sighed.

Acoya squeezed her hand.

“What is your real name?” Castiel suddenly asked Acoya.

“Real name? I don’t know what you are talking about.” Acoya protested, but after receiving the angel’s intent stare he sighed: “Camael… our kind used to call me Camael.” He confessed.

“Whoa!” Dean exclaimed. “Are you a freaking angel?!”

 “Dominion*… ” Camael scratched the back of his head.

“Will you help me stand against Raphael’s army?” Castiel asked.

“And what would I do? Shoot him with an arrow of love? I used to rule cupids not fight battles.” The angel sighed.

Castiel looked him in the eyes and then sighed. “He is right.” He said.

“But,” Camael smiled. “I can help you in other ways.” With those words he reached to the pocket of his pants, extracting a very old looking piece of parchment and gave it to Castiel. “It is a scroll with a cloaking spell.” He explained. “It was lost from the libraries of heaven a long time ago. I didn’t steal it, but found it here, on earth. This is a very unique and useful spell, no matter how powerful a being you cast it on appears to be, the end result is that you will never be able to see anything more than a human. It has other properties as well, you will never be able to read the person’s mind, or determine their bloodline through magical means. You have already seen this spell in work. Twice.”

Dean looked at Mary and she looked at him. “Oh…” She blinked.

“That is not all.” The dominion continued turning his attention to his girlfriend as she extracted a book from her leather bag. “I heard some rumors that you’re searching for something called Logos.” He said taking the book from Chuqui-llantu and passing it to Dean. “This should help you.”

The older Winchester looked at the book he was given. “What the…” he managed as he saw the cover portraying three bare-chested men one of which had a pair of white wings behind his back and a word ‘Supernatural’ above the picture. “How can this help us?” He asked turning his eyes back to the couple they had helped, but as he did, he realized that they were no longer there.

***

The sun had slowly started to disappear behind the horizon when the four of them finally crossed the field to return to the fair.

“Should we go back to the motel, pick up the car, and return to Bobby?” Sam asked his brother.

“No, first we need to do one more important thing.” Dean smiled.

All four of them, including Castiel, looked dirty and tired, but Dean didn’t want to leave just yet.

“The Ferris wheel!” The older hunter announced pulling them to the very center of the fair.

It was Sunday night, the last day before the fair was going to move on to somewhere else. Most of the families with small children had already left, leaving mostly younger couples to enjoy the last night. The narrow passages between the tents were still pretty crowded, but it wasn’t as bad as a day ago.

The lady operating the Ferris wheel looked at the four of them with distrust, but Dean didn’t give a damn about her opinion. He smiled slyly and moved to the car, following his family. Mary hurried to take a place next to Sam, leaving Dean the spot close to the angel.

“So, looks like all four Winchesters finally can relax a little?” He looked around the small car when the wheel finally started to move.

“I am not a Winchester.” Castiel informed.

“Oh yeah, and what about this?” Dean chuckled starting to search his pockets till he was able to find what he was looked for – a fake plastic ID he made for Castiel when the angel was pretending to be Mary’s father before the school principal. “You see, it’s says ‘Winchester’” Dean give the ID to the angel. “Keep it.”

Castiel looked at the plastic card curiously and Dean could swear the angel was blushing.

“Thank you.” Castiel finally managed to reply.

“Dean, if you really wanted to give Cas our last name, you could’ve just married him!” Sam laughed, but upon receiving the judgmental look from his older brother added: “Ok, not my best joke.”

Dean kicked Sam’s shoe and smiled. Then he turned his head to his daughter. The girl wasn’t paying attention to anything going on around her, she was probably too tired. Instead she watched the view from above. The Sioux Falls looked beautiful from up high. Most of the buildings had already turned their lights on for the night, and now the city looked like a net of garlands was covering it whole. The light of the city reflected in Mary’s eyes making her look even more beautiful.

It was really a small miracle in Dean’s life. She had appeared unexpectedly, and already had time to occupy a large space in Dean’s heart. The hunter imagined how he would feel if he’d had the opportunity to care about her from the very beginning, the chance to watch her grow up…

Dean reached for Mary’s shoulder placing his hand on it and squeezing. “Happy Birthday.” He said smiling.

* * *

* Dominion - The "Dominions" (lat.  _dominatio_ , plural  _dominationes_ , also translated from the Greek term  _kyriotites_  as "Lordships") are presented as the hierarchy of celestial beings "Lordships" in the  _De Coelesti Hierarchia_. The Dominions regulate the duties of lower angels. (Wikipedia)

 


	13. I See Dead Puppies (part 1)

_April 2001,_

_Redmond, WA._

  
It was a beautiful day at the end of April. The weather had already started to feel like summer, but it wasn’t hot enough to make you dream of nothing but a cold drink and a cool shower every time you stepped outside.  
It was Friday, a little bit after six PM and the street was busy with people whose working day was over and were hurrying home to be with their families, or to change clothes and go out with friends to celebrate the end of the working week.

  
Everyone was in hurry, but one.

  
Andrew exited the gates of an enormous office building and walked towards his silver Lexus. He stood there for a moment with the car keys, pondering opening the door, but decided against it. He slid the keys back inside the pocket of his expensive black slacks and walked away.

  
Laid off. The notice that was printed on a small piece of paper had changed his life forever. It wasn’t even his fault, it was just that the project he had been working on for what seemed like his entire life had been shut down. The directors had failed to see it’s necessity.

  
Andrew walked several blocks down the street wondering what to do with his life now. He wasn’t in a hurry even though he knew his pregnant wife and four-year old son were waiting for him at home. Home. Now they would probably need to vacate it and move into something cheaper. It wasn’t that he thought he would never find a decent job, he was a talented computer software engineer, it was just that no other job would allow he and his family to pay off their three-story house in a very wealthy neighborhood. How could he hurry home only to bring that kind of news?

  
Andrew didn’t know how he’d reached a small park with a playground for kids. It was very busy, filled with nearly a dozen children running around, and nearly the same amount of parents or nannies who made themselves comfortable on the benches around the playground, reading books or talking on phones while watching the kids with one eye.

  
Andrew took a seat on one of the benches, watching the children with an ache in his heart. He’d had so many plans for his own kids, he’d planned to give them everything, to take them around the world on vacations, send them to Harvard or Oxford when they grew up. Now he would have to change all those plans. Andrew closed his eyes massaging his temples with the tips of his fingers.

  
“Hey mister, do you like my puppy?” he suddenly heard a high pitched voice next to him say.

  
Andrew opened his eyes and spotted a small girl. She looked no older than six years old, and she was dressed in a pastel pink dress with a picture of Tinkerbell printed on it. One of her hands was raised like she was petting something. Young children had such vivid imaginations.

  
“Your puppy must be really big if you need to reach this high to pet him.” Andrew said smiling.

  
“Oh yeah, I feed him lots!” The girl smiled.

  
“And what do you feed him?”

  
“Human souls!” She laughed.

  
Andrew raised his eyebrows, wondering how a little girl could come up with such a morbid idea. She’d probably heard it somewhere on TV. Some parents were just too careless and didn’t control what their kids were watching.

  
“I don’t think that’s a good food for a puppy. Maybe you should get him some dog snacks instead?” Andrew looked around trying to see if any of the parents looking at them. Usually they wouldn’t like random strangers talking to their kids for so long, and he didn’t want to be accused of pedophilia. Surprisingly he saw no one. Literally no one: the whole playground, had been filled with people just a moment ago, but now was absolutely empty.  
Something rather huge growled next to the him, breathing heavily into his face. The breath smelled like a mix of burning matches and rotten eggs. ‘Sulfur’ crossed Andrew’s mind.  
A wave of panic suddenly enveloped him, making him break out in goose bumps.

  
The girl giggled innocently waving her little hand. “Oh, Andrew, you’re so silly!”

  
“How… how do you know my name?” He asked.

  
“I know everything about you. I know you were laid off, I know you have no idea what to do right now, that you don’t know how to bring this news to your loved ones.” She took a seat next to Andrew, looking at him with a soft smile.

  
“Who are you?” The guy asked nearly shivering in fright.

  
“I’m the one who can help you.” The girl explained and just for a split of a second, Andrew could swear her eyes turned red. “I can make it so that you suddenly find your own way of doing things, not relying on the people above. You will become your own boss, you will build a corporation which will stomp out any other companies on the market. Your kids will grow up not knowing how it feels to live from one paycheck to another, trying to save every cent. They will get the best education, will have great careers, isn’t that what you want? You want them to never have the childhood you had.”

  
  
Andrew still didn’t believe his ears. It must have been a dream, or a nightmare. He’d probably fallen asleep on the bench in the park. “And what will you get out of helping me?” He asked anyway.  
“Your soul.” The girl replied simply, making him laugh suddenly.

  
“My soul, really?”

  
But the girl looked him right in the eyes and it suddenly stopped sounding so funny.

  
“I will give you ten years. Ten long years to spend with your family, watching your kids grow. And then you will die, leaving a fortune for them.”

  
“And what if I refuse? I’m still pretty sure I will be able to earn decent money. Maybe not enough for living in a mansion, and going to the best universities, but plenty for having a normal childhood.”

  
“In that case I will simply leave and you will see me never again. But there will be a small complication. You see, your wife is going to die. No, no! I swear I haven’t done anything to her, I will not affect your life in any way. It is just… her fate, to die while in childbirth. But I can stop it too, like a bonus for our deal. Absolutely free.”

  
Andrew gulped looking at the little monster girl. Her invisible companion growled again scratching the ground with its claws, leaving enormous marks on the asphalt.

  
“So, Andrew Moor, What is your answer?”

 

***

_April 2011_  
 _Sioux Falls, SD_  
The three hunters were sitting in Bobby’s study room, concentrating on their research. The whole room was piled with hundreds of books they had moved from the Campbell’s archive. It was an unpleasant work, but someone had to do it. Some of the items in the Campbell’s collection were so rare that copies probably didn’t exist anywhere else. The worst part was that no-one could guarantee their success: they could spend several days working on it, and not be able to find anything useful.

  
“At least we will sort them, so I will be able to add them to my own library.” Bobby sighed placing one of the books he was looking through in a one of the already sorted piles. “Any luck on your side?” Bobby addressed to Dean who was sitting on a chair backwards with the book Camuel had given them, using the back of the chair as a trestle for his elbows.

  
“Nothing.” Dean announced gloomily. “I’ve looked through it like four times already and still have no clue why an angel-freak would give us this!” Dean threw the book on the table.

  
“Only I feel like a creep reading it.”

  
The book consisted of four stories and narrated their life starting from the moment Lucifer got free, to the moment when Dean returned from a nightmarish future created by Zachariah. Those weren’t nice moments to remember.

  
“But there should have been a reason Camuel gave it to us. Maybe a mention of something? Something which you considered unimportant, but was actually vital?”  
Sam stood from the couch, moving towards the bureau table to pick up the book, but suddenly Dean covered it with his palm, looking at Sam like a hungry dog someone was trying to steal a piece of meat from.  
“Dean?” Sam raised his eyebrow suspiciously.

  
The older Winchester deflated and finally moved his hand away from the book. Yes, the book likely had some moments, some emotional outburst of Dean’s that he didn’t want anyone to know, but it was stupid to try to hide it when the safety of the world was depending on someone else knowing it. Plus the book had many moments of Sam’s life Dean didn’t want to know, but had to read through them anyway.

  
“I will go check on Mary.” Dean sighed and left from the room.

  
Dean found his daughter in the back yard of Bobby’s house. The girl had put targets on some half-ruined cars and was shooting at them with a bow she had taken from the basement. Dean watched an arrow hit one of the targets right in the center. Several other targets had been shot in the same manner. To the hunter’s surprise Mary turned out to be a good shot.

  
“Did I teach you that?” Dean asked with a whistle.

  
Mary turned her head giving her father a cold and nearly indifferent look. “No, I used to go to an archery club.” She answered before launching yet another arrow.

  
People who knew Dean had always considered him to be blind to the emotions of others. But Dean wasn’t blind. He rarely talked about feelings, he never was the one starting it. But this was only because Dean was sure that pitying other people in the hunting sphere, asking them if everything was all right, was only making those people weaker. And being weak for hunters could only mean death.

  
“What is it?” He finally asked with a sigh, taking a seat on the hood of a rusted Ford.

  
Mary turned to face him, her cold gaze softened turning into an upset one.

  
“I was useless.” She said moving her eyes to the floor and clenching her fists. “I looked at Tawa, I knew that it was someone who could kill us all, and yet, I couldn’t shoot. It was like my hands stopped listening to me.”  
“There is nothing wrong with not being able to kill.” Dean said seriously.

  
“But there are so many things wrong with not being able to protect yourself if your last name is Winchester.” Mary growled, dropping the bow to the ground.  
“Mary…”

  
“No, don’t even start your speech about me having a normal life. My life is anything but normal, and you won’t be around forever. In fact, I’m not sure if I can still consider you as being around considering the fact that in my timeline you’re **_dead!_** ”

  
Mary was speaking fast, her tone was filled with anger and Dean could see her fighting back tears.

  
Dean stood up from the hood of the car and moved towards Mary, embracing her. He knew how she felt, he remembered it well. When he had seen a Shtriga over the bed of his little brother, sucking the life force out of him and he couldn’t do a thing.

  
“I know that you’ve never wanted me to grow up a hunter,” she continued, “now, seeing everything for myself, I understand why. There is nothing fun or heroic in it. There are no happy endings, there is only pain and death.” Now she started to cry, hiding her face in Dean’s shoulder. “I dreamt about becoming one of you… I did. But now I don’t want it. But… I have to.”

  
“Mary…” Dean tried again.

  
“No, you don’t understand!”

  
“Yes I do!” Dean finally lost the facade of calm he tried to keep. He pushed his daughter away. “Yes I do!” He repeated tugging off his shirt.

  
“Huh?” Mary said, surprised.  
  
“What? I love this shirt, I would be pissed to tear it while training.” Dean explained. “Close your mouth and come over here, I’ll show you some moves.”

 

***

 Sam had finished reading the first fifty pages of the ‘Supernatural’ book when the phone in Bobby’s kitchen started to ring. The old hunter mumbled something about people who never want to leave him alone before disappearing in the kitchen.

Sam didn’t hear the conversation the old hunter had in another room because he was too concentrated on reading in an attempt to not get angry with the way that the exact details of their life were described in here, and not to think about how many people had read it. And not only people. Every monster could now just simply walk into a bookstore and purchase the book, allowing them to find out everything about their weak spots.

  
Bobby returned from the kitchen looking even more annoyed then when he left.

  
“Anything happen?” Sam inquired.

  
“Have you ever heard of people calling me to tell that the weather is great today?” Bobby replied sarcastically.

  
“So, who was it and what did they want?” Sam asked not paying attention to the sarcasm.

  
“Answering the question of who, I would say that it was a pathetic excuse for a hunter named Garth. There is something really weird going on in Redmond, Washington.”

  
“Weird, like?..” Sam asked.

  
“Like… I dunno. Demon omens, werewolf attacks, vampires. If I didn’t know Garth I would say this is something really weird even for us. But it’s Garth, he probably messed up the details again. Anyway, it would be better if you and Dean could go there and take a look yourselves.” Bobby explained returning to his working place.

  
“All right, I gotta go and find Dean then.” Sam nodded standing up.

  
When Sam walked into salvage yard he couldn’t believe his eyes. Here, in the very middle was standing a shirtless Dean, trying to explain Mary how to move her torso right, if she was captured by someone, so that she could get free. Then Dean asked her to try it out, grabbing her by the neck with his arm.  Mary easily pushed him to a side, wrenching Dean’s arm which would have been painful if she didn’t hold back.  
“Wow, that was awesome!” Sam chuckled making the both of them to turn their heads.

  
“Thanks!” Mary smiled.

  
“Anything you need?” Dean asked massaging his elbow. Looked like Mary wasn’t holding back as much as Sam thought.

  
“Yeah, we have a job!” The younger brother nodded.

***

  
The ride to Redmond had been mostly spent in silence. They had to stop for a night nearby Butte in Montana where Sam started to interrogate his brother about his sudden decision to take Mary with them. Dean wasn’t hiding that Mary had convinced him of the need to teach her more about hunting. He explained it to Sam as well as he could, and in the end his brother seemed to calm down enough to finally agree with him.  
  
Of course Dean didn’t have any intention of allowing Mary to jump in the middle of any fights, they had agreed that she would only stay in the motel, and help them with another set of fresh eyes and brain since she was really smart for her age and had knowledge on the topic.

  
Dean still worried about it though. He kept blaming himself for the fact that his daughter was now was forced into the middle of everything he and his brother were going through. He thought that maybe he made a mistake allowing her to. On the other hand. Mary was right. She might not have needed to know how to hunt before, and maybe she still didn’t, but what was done was done, at the very least she had to know how to defend herself in case Dean wasn’t around.

  
The weather in Redmond was different than it had been on the road. It was windy, the whole sky was covered with black heavy clouds and the bolts of lightning were nearly reaching to the ground. Entering the city after hours spent on a sunny road was giving the Winchesters a feeling like they were entering an anomaly zone.

  
Garth met them on the parking lot, smiling so wide that it looked creepy. If Dean didn’t know about this guy from Bobby, he would assume that he was a demon himself.

  
“Heeey guys!” He greeted approaching the Impala and trying to give Dean a hug.

  
Dean nearly jumped in surprise, trying to get away. Unfortunately Garth didn’t notice his confusion, and the way of retreat was blocked by Dean’s own car, so the smaller guy managed to hug him in the end. The same course of actions were repeated on Sam.

  
And then Garth noticed Mary. But instead of hugging he grabbed her hand placing a kiss on her knuckles.

  
“I apologize for my ignorance, but no-one told me that a beautiful lady would be joining us.” He smiled, still keeping her hand in his. “So, what your name, beautiful?”  
  
At this point Dean suddenly started to consider hitting Garth with something heavy.

  
“Mary…” She replied awkwardly trying to pull her hand away.

  
“So, you’re traveling with Sam and Dean, any particular reason for that?” Garth asked.

  
“Ok, Garth, that’s enough questions,” Dean interrupted tugging the smaller guy away from his daughter.

  
“We have business in here, so let’s concentrate on it.” The guy raised his eyebrow and gestured to Mary with his head. “Yeah, she is aware.” Dean confirmed.

 

***

All of the clues and documents Garth was able to collect before the Winchesters arrival were in such a mess that it was difficult to understand what part of which piece of papers belonged where. Sam had always considered his brother the most disorganized person he knew, but seeing Garth spilling pictures of victims out of a small black trash bag he decided to rearrange his ranking.  
“So, what are we dealing with?” Dean asked, looking through the pictures of dead people.

  
“Beats me,” Garth sighed. “We have two bodies killed by a large animal, presumably a werewolf.”

  
Garth pushed several pictures with dead men torn apart by something that reminded her of claws. Their whole bodies were defaced to the point it was impossible to see any of their features. Sam wasn’t even sure what gender the killed people were.

  
“Did they have missing hearts?” Mary inquired from another corner of the room.

  
At first she tried to look at the evidence the other hunter had provided, but after seeing those pictures she excused herself and moved to a further end of the room and was now communicating with the three hunters from there.

  
Garth blinked several times, glancing at Mary and then returned to the pictures. “I suppose.” He nodded.

  
“What do you suppose?” Dean asked.

  
“That they are missing hearts, of course! It was a werewolf!”

  
Sam covered his face with his palm fighting the urge to smack the other hunter. The guy didn’t even check everything and jumped into conclusion about werewolves. It seemed that Bobby was right about him. Now he and Dean will have to start the investigation from the beginning, going to the morgue and talking to the family members.

  
“All right, what about the other victims?” Dean sighed and Sam could see that his brother was just as frustrated as he was.  
“Here” Garth moved five other pictures to the Winchester brothers which looked more decent than the previous ones, since the people in them were mostly intact. “The reason for death is blood loss, but no visible injuries on the bodies.”

  
“So, what could this be in your opinion?” Dean hummed looking at the photos.  
  
“Vampires?” Garth shook his shoulders.

  
Involuntarily Sam hit the wall he was leaning on with his head, wondering it was that Garth was still alive. He saw Mary standing up from the bed and walking to the parking lot. Well, at least one of the Winchesters had decided to play it smart.

 

***

 Mary approached the Impala and climbed on its hood. The atmosphere in the room wasn’t exactly what she had expected when she went on a job with her father and uncle. Mary had met Garth before, but she was ten years old and didn’t remember it clearly. Later on the guy got married to a girl named Becky and quit the business, moving to the other side of the country and had never had the chance to visit again. She had also heard stories about his nonstandard approach to things, but meeting Garth in real life had turned out to be another story. To tell the truth she couldn’t recall any other person who could annoy her this much. The grace inside her suddenly started to thud loudly.

  
“Damn.” Mary sighed, realizing how negative her thoughts were. To tell the truth there wasn’t anything that annoying about Garth, but for some reasons her being filled with negative emotions had caused her to dump it all on the guy.

  
“What is happening to me?” She asked the emptiness of the parking lot, laying herself down on the hood of the car. She suddenly started to feel ashamed of her unreasonable anger.  
Mary looked at the gray sky above her head trying to calm herself down. It was chill and windy and the heavy clouds looked like they were about to explode in a heavy rain any moment, but for now Mary still had several moments to relax and think.

  
Her thoughts were distracted as she heard a bark from somewhere close to her. Mary opened her eyes looking around the parking lot and spotted a large black Rottweiler staring at her from another side of the lot.  
  
“Hey there!” She smiled to the dog, trying to call it.

  
The Rottweiler growled and didn’t move.

  
Suddenly something beeped in her pocket, distracting her from the dog. Mary reached into her pocket extracting her slim phone out of it and looking at the screen. “Welcome to the test launch of Alpheon Network!” was written on the screen.

  
Mary blinked several times, surprised that her phone connected to a network which supposedly wasn’t existent in the time period she was currently in, but considered the best one in her time.  
When Mary looked around the parking lot again, the Rottweiler was nowhere to be seen.  


***

 The morgue where the all of the dead bodies were transported was situated at the far end of a several storey high hospital, which wasn’t different from any other hospitals Mary had ever been to. It was just plain and simple structure consisting of several long corridors, painted in light blue with the distinguishing smell of chloride and medication.

  
While Dean and Garth went to the police station to find more information about the victims Sam and Mary had been sent here to look at the bodies. Of course it was Sam who went to the morgue by himself as Mary looked too young to pretend to be an FBI agent, and more importantly, she didn’t want to deal with anything gross.

  
So here she was sitting in the large hall of the hospital looking over the crowd of people in case she could see anything suspicious. But for now the only suspicious person in the whole hall was herself, sitting here alone. Several times she was approached by a staff member asking her if she wanted anything, and each time Mary replied that she was only waiting for her uncle, who had come to visit his sick friend.

  
Mary sighed stretching her arms and noticed a lamp above her head starting to flicker. A wave of cold air brushed over her face making her exhale a puff of steam. Her heart jumped in her chest as she recognized the evidence of ghost activity. Mary quickly looked around, reaching for the angel blade strapped to her side under her shirt and noticed a pale man standing in the middle of the hallway looking at her. He was dressed in a business suit and looked absolutely out of place standing in the middle of the corridor. A nurse passed him by, shivering suddenly from the cold and muttering something about air conditioners being set too low.

  
Mary slowly stood from the chair, moving toward the ghost whose gaze had never left her, but other than that hadn’t shown any signs of aggression. She took several steps closer but the ghostly guy flickered and disappeared from view, reappearing closer to the reception table and pointing at it with his pale hand.

  
Mary looked at the desk trying to figure out what the ghost wanted to tell her. It looked clean, and every item lying on top was in place and well organized. The brochures of different medical insurance offers were placed on a metal stand in the corner, and several advertisement papers and business cards were stacked in neat piles next to it. Other than that and a glued to the table surface pen, which looked rather cheap, the desk didn’t have anything else.

  
The light flickered again making the screen of the computer behind the desk blink. The receptionist, an elderly but well groomed woman, glanced at it with distrust and kicked at the computer’s slick side several times. She attempted to return to work, but then she noticed Mary standing in front of her and smiled.

  
“Anything you need?” The receptionist asked.

  
“Just decided to stretch my legs.” Mary lied. “Actually, would you mind giving me a blank piece of paper? My uncle takes so long for some reason, and I forgot my drawing pad in the car and don’t have keys.”  
“Sure thing, dear.” The woman nodded and offered the paper and a pencil.

  
“Thank you.” Mary smiled with appreciation.

  
On the way back to the chairs she also grabbed every version of the advertisements they had.

 

***

“So, now there is a ghost we also have to deal with?” Sam sighed looking at the portrait Mary had drawn while waiting in the hospital lobby as he dropped to a chair in the motel room.

  
The portrait was well drawn and looked realistic, making Sam wonder when Mary had time to learn how to draw this well, considering she was only eighteen and was mostly preoccupied with school. Just a moment ago Sam had finished checking the hospital database but couldn’t find anyone that looked close to the drawing, who had died there in the past twenty years.

  
“Maybe one of the patients is carrying something which binds the ghost to it?” Dean proposed. “It would make sense.”

  
“His face looks familiar.” Garth Suddenly announced, nearly tearing the sheet of paper out of Sam’s hands. “Wait, I should check something.” He added reaching for his black trash bag he happened to keep all of the case evidences.

  
He emptied the bag all over one of the beds, starting to dig through the piles of paper and pictures till he finally was able to find what he was looking for. “Aha!” he smiled victoriously showing a file of missing people. “David Morten, thirty six years old, working as a program engineer at ASC, disappeared five days ago together along with several others of his colleagues.”  
“His colleagues?” Asked Sam

  
“ASC?” said Mary. “You mean the Alpheon Software Corporation?”

  
Garth moved his eyes from Sam to Mary, raising his eyebrows. “Yes, his colleagues. The ones whom the werewolves and vampires killed, remember?” he replied. “And yes, I mean Alpheon. Although it’s just a company, not a corporation.”

  
Dean rushed to the files checking every victim file Garth had. “Garth, why didn’t you tell us this from the beginning?” he nearly yelled shoving the documents into his brother’s face. “All of the dead and missing people worked at this ASC place!”

  
“Just what is this ASC?” Asked Sam, taking the papers out of Dean’s hands. “I thought that I was aware of every software company out there.”

  
“Oh, it’s a pretty big deal over here.” Garth weaved his hand “They were a humble but well respected company, but then, several months ago they announced the launch of a large network which, as they claim, can cover the entire globe, providing better quality and cheaper internet and mobile services. Haven’t you been watching the news?”

  
Dean and Sam exchanged surprised looks. To tell the truth, no, they hadn’t had any time to watch much TV lately, or read the newspapers.

  
“Garth…” Dean sighed. “You’re telling us this only now, because…”

  
“Do you guys think it might be important?” He asked.

  
“Yeah, Garth…” Sam smiled mockingly. “That could be important!”

  
“But… Alpheon should have been launched five years from now…” Mary added.

  
“Wait, are you familiar with this name?” Dean asked.

  
“Familiar?” Mary replied, “I think, you can say so...”

  
_TBC..._


	14. I See Dead Puppies (part II)

The heavy clouds above Redmond which were hanging there for the past couple of days weren’t hurrying to go away. The sky seemed even darker and heavier than it was the evening they’d arrived, but not a single drop had fallen to the ground since then.

Dean parked his car in front of the giant house that looked more like mansion. It was standing apart from all other houses in the area, and surrounded by a tall brick wall with a single fenced gate. Dean had passed said gate only a moment ago, talking to a tired sounding male voice from the house intercom.

“Wow, some people know how to live!” Whistled Garth, as he opened the passenger door stepping out of the car.

Dean gave his companion a look of agreement. At least Dean thought that the look was of agreement, he really didn’t want to talk to the other hunter after he’d accidentally forgotten to mention that all of the victims had been working in the same place. To tell the truth Dean would have preferred to have a dry stump as a partner instead of Garth. He was pretty sure that the stump would have been more useful. At least you could hit someone with it if was small enough to lift, or use it as shield if it was bigger.

Dean moved towards the porch of the house and raised his hand to ring the bell, but the door opened before his finger had touched the small white button.

“Ah, hello agents.” Greeted a middle aged man dressed in a plain gray sweater and dark blue jeans. “I’m Andrew, Andrew Moor, how can I help you?

Dean tried to hide his surprise while shaking Andrew’s hand. For some reason he had thought that a man ruling a major company and living in a mansion wouldn’t wear something as simple as a sweater and jeans.

Andrew invited them into the house to a large living room. The first thing Dean noticed in there was a giant fish tank occupying nearly the entire south wall of the room. The second thing he noticed was the extremely comfy couches as he settled into them.

A maid ran toward the company bringing tea, coffee, and some extra salty crackers that Dean found especially tasty. All of the drinks offered to the two hunters were poured into delicate and expensive looking china cups with small silver spoons placed next to them. Dean looked at the cups with distrust because he wasn’t used to handling something so fragile, and the size of the coffee serving was too small for his habits. Determined not to offend his host he sipped his coffee, but nearly choked on the black liquid because of how strong it was.

“Oh, you’re probably not used to it.” Andrew sighed. “It’s how the rest of the world drink it, in small portions, but strong. Try to add sugar and cream, I promise you won’t regret it. It isn’t every day you have the chance to drink Arabic coffee prepared on heated sand.”

Dean hummed curiously adding sugar to his drink with a tiny silver spoon, then pouring milk into it from a small white pitcher. This time the coffee didn’t seem as bad. Slightly weird, but pretty good.

Out of the corner of his eye Dean noticed that Andrew was watching him closely as his lips touched the hot liquid, but seeing the hunter drinking it seemed to satisfy the host.

“So, Mr. Moor,” Garth started as he finished the cup of his green tea in several gulps, “it turned out that all of the victims the police found had been working for you.”

“What do you mean, ‘turned out’?” Andrew said. “I myself sent the report to the police about their disappearance.”

The maid moved to Andrew offering him a cup of coffee, but he only shook his head and started rubbing one of his temples.

“Is everything all right?” Dean inquired. “You look very tired.”

And really, Andrew looked like he hadn’t slept for the past couple of nights. The dark circles were blooming under his eyes, and his hands were shaking a little.

“What do you think, agent,” Mr. Moor sighed again, “we just finished launching the beta test of our new network. We have a presentation in a week, which is going to be a big deal, with reporters, leaders of every technology related company you can think of, and I’m missing all of my best people. It’s not even like my company will fail without them, because if needed I can present this damn network alone, it’s just they were my friends. We started the Alpheon Soft together, you know? They were an important part.”

“Can you think of anyone who would want to harm them?” Dean asked, trying to kick one of Garth’s feet without Andrew noticing, as the said foot was now buried under a carpet Andrew had on the floor.

Andrew started to laugh. “Are you kidding me? Who wouldn’t? We started the company from nothing and for the past decade we were able to start standing independently. Then we finally grew to the point where our most important project is going to see the light. Of course our competition wouldn’t like it. Of course they would love to see us crashing. But the way the bodies looked… No human could do that.”

“No human?” Garth said, “what could then?” He then dropped his spoon and started to sink under the table in an attempt to retrieve it back.

Andrew watched Garth with surprise, but didn’t comment, then he turned his attention to Dean. It looked like he wanted to say something but a noise outside the room suddenly startled him making him look around the room nearly in panic. But within a moment he managed to get a hold of himself.

“Don! Aithne! How many times I have told you not to listen under the door when adults are talking?” Andrew yelled.

Dean heard a rustle behind the door and a sound of two pairs of footsteps running away from it.

“Are they your kids?” Dean smiled warmly.

“Yeah, they are very sweet, they just keeping sticking their noses into everyone’s business.”

“Why won’t you invite them to the conversation then?” Inquired Garth, appearing from under the table. “Sometimes kids have a lot of things to tell.”

“But they are just ten and fourteen. Do you want me to discuss people torn apart by some sort of crazy monster with them?”

“Aha! Crazy monsters, let’s talk about them. What do you know about monsters?” Garth said, making Dean nearly groan in frustration. What was the other hunter thinking asking such a question? It was so unprofessional that Dean was trying to suppress the urge to drag Garth out of the house and return here alone to finish the interrogation.

Andrew in his turn looked at Garth with a mix of fear and surprise. “Monsters? I just used it as an expression. You know, people who do something as terrible as this.” He quickly explained.

The way Andrew reacted to the question seemed unnatural to Dean. It seemed like the Alpheon Soft director did actually know something more than he was willing to share. Dean just had to figure out how to pull this information out of him.

“Would you mind me looking under your carpet?” Garth asked interrupting Dean’s thoughts and sliding off the couch to his knees yet again as he started to tug one of the ends of the carpets to look under it.

Dean tried to stop his companion, because such behavior was totally inappropriate for the situation. He only had time to reach Garth, grabbing him by the hand when he saw it as clear as a day – a devil’s trap painted in white paint was decorating the expensive parquet under the carpet.

“Holy crap!” Dean managed in surprise looking from Garth to the trap and to the owner of the house. Dean had no idea how Garth managed it, he considered him absolutely useless, but it turned out he had talked Andrew into revealing his secret just a few minutes.

“So, why do you have a devil’s trap under the carpet?” Garth asked.

Andrew sighed looking at the two pretend to be agents, then, he suddenly reached to his pocket withdrawing a hand pistol pointing it at the smaller hunter. Dean reacted fast, reaching for his own gun and pointing it at the house owner.

“Ok, let’s not act on the impulse” yelped Garth holding his hand up as in a sign of defeat. “We are not monsters!”

“I know, you had holy water added to your drinks.” Andrew nodded still pointing his gun on Garth” “Hunters then?”

“Well, yeah…” Dean nodded, carefully lowering his own gun. “Mind telling us everything?”

***

The main building of Alpheon Software didn’t look half as impressive as the building of their main competitor who had their headquarters in the same city, but it was growing and becoming more and more successful with every day. The blue glass was covering its all five stories and it looked nearly transparent. A large sign with the name of the company was erected before the main entrance next to a small fountain.

Sam parked the silver Toyota they had rented for the day in the parking lot before the office building. “Hope we will be luckier this time.” He sighed opening the door.

“Why shouldn’t we?” Said Mary, who stepped out of the car next to her uncle fixing her fake glasses, “The people who work here should know the most about what’s  going on.”

Mary got out of the car, stretching and looking around. Suddenly she spotted a black Rottweiler looking at her from the corner of the other car. Mary could have sworn that it was the same exact dog she saw previously this day.

“Everything ok?” Sam inquired, catching her gaze fixed on something.

“Yeah, it’s just I think I saw this dog earlier today.” She pointed at the car the Rottweiler was sitting behind.

“What dog?” Asked Sam looking in the direction where Mary pointed. “Did it run away?”

Mary looked at her uncle. He was definitely looking in the right direction and the dog was still there, but he couldn’t see it. “Yeah, it ran away…” she nodded.

“All right then, let’s go.” Sam replied smiling, and turning towards the building.

“Sam!” Marry suddenly called. She wasn’t even sure why, but the burden of her secret was more and more difficult to carry. The last time she had managed to figure out something to explain, but now… this dog could have been an important link, but how could she say that only she could see it without being suspicious?

“Yes?” Sam turned his attention back to his niece.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that a same dog was sniffing around our motel room and the Alpheon headquarters?” She asked quietly, nearly in a whisper.

“Are you sure it was the same exact dog?” Sam inquired.

Mary looked around the parking lot once again, noticing that now it was empty. “Yes, I’m sure…” she nodded.

“All right…” Sam exhaled. “We just going to concentrate on the plan, but also ask people if they know something about the dog.”

Mary simply nodded in response.

***

The main hall of the office building was brightly lit. It was a large room from which you could see all five floors at once, since they were built around it. Transparent elevator booths were moving back and forth on the other side of the hall, and giant globe with scrolling blue letters around it was hanging from the high ceiling.

The hunter and his niece moved to the security post flashing their journalist IDs to the guard who kindly pointed them to the direction of the office they had an appointment at.

“Tell me again, what magazine are you representing?” Inquired a respectable looking woman who was sitting on the other side of the table from Sam and Mary.

The room itself looked very plain and simple compared to the main hall. It was small, painted in white, with a large window on one of the walls and another wall made of mirror glass that allowed them to see everything that was on the other side. The rest of the walls were absolutely empty, without even a single picture hanging on them. The table itself was made of light wood, but it looked as simple as the rest of the room. On the surface of the table there were only two objects. The first one was a small laptop with a blue letter ‘A’ crossed by lighter blue pulse beats as an emblem which looked somewhat familiar to Sam and very familiar to Mary. The second object was a small black sign with golden letters which was saying “Vice President Christine Moor”.

“Technological Week” Sam lied.

“You mean, Weekly Technology?” Christine raised her eyebrow.

“No-no, it’s an entirely different magazine.” Explained Sam, extracting a business card from his pocket and moving it towards the Vice President.

“Never heard of it.” Christine narrowed her brows looking suspiciously at the card.

“You see, we are a very young publication.” Mary offered. “Not many people are familiar with it yet.”

“All right then.” The woman nodded smiling, “My name is Christine, what would you like to know?”

With those words she moved her laptop closer to her and quickly typed something, before returning her full attention back to the two guests.

“We would like to know more about the new network launch.” Sam smiled warmly taking a notepad and a pen to his hands.

“Ah, right! Of course you would, it’s the biggest technological news at the moment.” Christine nodded. “We have already launched a test network which is going to be active during the whole week before the presentation.”

“As I understand it,” Sam continued, “Only special devices, such as your laptop here, can receive the network signal.” The vice president nodded again. “But your hardware products aren’t commonly sold on the market. Who is going to participate in the testing?”

“Well, as you mentioned, it’s still impossible to simply go to a store and buy computers and phones which could work with the network, but the beta test has a large number of participants. Our goal is to improve the future of the country and the whole world, that it why we decided that a new generation would make the best testers of the network. Thousands of the computers equipped with necessary transmitters were distributed among dozens of schools.”

“Huh, it sounds like the project had some serious expenses from your side.” Mary pointed out.

“Well, yes, to tell the truth it’s because of this exact reason that our company hadn’t been planning on launching the network for another five years. But suddenly we found a wealthy sponsor willing to help us. It’s what you call a miracle!” She laughed contentedly.

“And who is the sponsor?” Sam asked.

“Oh, I wish I could tell you, but our sponsor didn’t want his name on it. Not even sure why they actually helped us, they don’t have much connection to the technology world…” For a moment she started to look thoughtful, then she turned her eyes back to the computer screen, before focusing back on the two reporters.

“I have another question, Ms. Moor.” Sam continued. “We weren’t supposed to talk to the vice president, were we? Why did you suddenly decide to be interviewed instead of the person we spoke to on the phone?”

“The person you talked to called in sick.” Christine replied quickly, but at the same time Sam noticed that the moment he asked this question, she broke the eye contact with him, turning her gaze away.

“Oh that is too bad. I know her name is Martha, but I didn’t catch the last name.” Sam sighed.

Christine looked suspiciously on the hunter. “Why would you want to know her last name?” She inquired.

“Just, she seemed like a nice person, would be polite from our publishing to send her a fruit basket or something, you know?”

Christine turned to the computer again quickly pressing several buttons, then sighed gathering her fingers in a lock under her chin moving her gaze from Sam to Mary and back.

“One last thing,” Said Mary. “It has nothing to do with the interview, we just we noticed a black Rottweiler walking around the parking lot alone. Is there anyone in the company who could have lost him?”

“You right, it does look like it has nothing to do with the interview.” The vice president agreed. “It also seems nothing we talked about has to do with interviews or magazines.”

“What do you mean?” Sam said.

“What do I mean? Like you don’t know.” She shook her head. “I asked my secretary to check the Technological Week. That magazine doesn’t exist.”

“It must be a mistake!” Sam protested. “You can call our director to confirm.”

Christine stood from her chair moving towards the door, then she opened it and turned to Sam and Mary. “Get out before I called security” She warned them.

Sam and Mary exchanged looks. Sam was the first to stand from his chair. “I apologize if you don’t believe us. We will leave if it makes you feel better” He nodded.

The hunter and his niece started to move towards the exit, but they didn’t even have the time to reach the door before a loud scream from somewhere on the other side of the corridor reached their ears. The three of them, without even thinking rushed towards the source of it.

***

The first thing Mary noticed as they exited the office was a half transparent guy flying from the direction of the scream and disappearing somewhere behind the giant globe in the center of the building, making the light of the running letters around it blink. The second thing Mary noticed was that she was the only one who had seen it. Sam stopped for a second looking around. He’d probably felt the cold deadly air touching his skin as the ghost passed several feet away from them, while Christine didn’t even flinch, of course she probably had no idea what a cold spot could mean.

They passed several more office doors before reaching the office the screaming had come from. The door to this room was open wide and inside it stood a pale woman holding her hand against her mouth. Her eyes were filled with fear, and she looked as though she was only a second away from passing out.

On the floor, in a pool of blood, lay a man. His eyes were still open and his face was frozen in dread horror, like the moment before death he’d seen something really terrible.

Besides the two of them there was a third person in the room, but this one could have not been seen by anyone but Mary. He was a man in his late forties dressed in a black suit. He looked around the room seemingly irritated, then looked at his watch before sighing and walking out. When the man noticed Sam he sighed again shaking his head before moving on.

Mary did her best not to look at him because she didn’t want the reaper to know she could see him. It seemed that he, like any other supernatural creature could not perceive her true identity.

Then, when the man walked some distance away from the office, she suddenly turned on her heel, “I’d better wait outside,” she whispered to Sam, before following the reaper.

“Excuse me, mister!” She called.

Mary knew that she was playing with fire. This move could blow her cover, making a good chunk of the supernatural world know of her existence, but it was probably the only chance she had of finding out what was going on.

The reaper turned his head looking at the girl indifferently, like he wasn’t even surprised by the fact she could see him.

“What is it, nephil?” He asked with a sigh.

Mary’s eyes went wide in surprise. It should have been impossible for anyone to see the angel grace in her. Could it mean that the cloaking spell wasn’t working as well as she expected?

“No need for shock.” The reaper said shaking his head, “Don’t forget that my superior stands above time, above even God himself. And don’t worry, he has no interest in you or spreading information about you.”

“Ok,” Mary nodded, still surprised. “What happened in there?” She asked.

The reaper looked at his watch again “Something which shouldn’t have been happened” He said quickly. “I should not even talk to you, but I don’t see the harm, maybe you and your family could deal with it. My level of annoyance grows with every dead person in this place. I don’t have time to reap their souls before they fly away somewhere. Then they return to kill others whose time haven’t yet come and I keep failing to collect their souls as well. It’s getting ridiculous!” He admitted.

“Do you have any idea of where they go?” Mary asked.

“I’m not a detective. Finding out where do they go isn’t a part of my job.” The Reaper replied. “But, I have suspicions that it’s connected with this thing.” He pointed down to the center of the hall.

Mary followed the direction he was pointing with her eyes and saw the black Rottweiler sitting in the very middle of the room. People were passing it by, not even paying any attention to the dog, like no-one could see him.

Sam suddenly appeared behind her, grabbing Mary by the hand. “We should hurry, Christine called security.” He said quickly.

Mary looked around the corridor and saw that the reaper had already left.  She followed her uncle towards the elevators hurrying to leave the building.

 

***

“Sam, I need to talk to you.” Mary announced as the two of them returned back to the car.

“About what?” Sam inquired.

The hunter wanted to call Dean, but he decided to exit the ASC territory first. And probably even drive some distance away from it as well, just in case Christine had called the police. Mary was sitting on the passenger seat looking through some papers she’d extracted from her backpack before starting to speak.

“About what happened in the ASC building” Mary said quietly.

 “Sure,” Sam exhaled, “So, what about it?”

 “You know why I left the room back there? “Mary asked.

“Cause of a dead guy in the middle of the office?” Sam guessed.

“No, I saw a reaper.” Mary explained.

Sam nearly lost the control over the car. With the last bit of concentration he managed to turn on a less busy street parking harshly next to a sidewalk.

“You saw **_what?!_** ”  He asked as he though there wasn’t a single chance he heard it right.

“A reaper,” Mary repeated. “You know, the guys who take souls after a person dies.”

“I know, I mean, how… why did you see it?” Sam’s heart was beating fast in his chest as he suddenly started to imagine how Dean would reacted if he heard his. He would probably freak out.

“Sam, I need you to trust me. Just this once, please. I talked to the reaper…”

“… You did **_what?_** ” Sam couldn’t resist. His brain had already started to calculate every possibility why Mary was able to see and talk to it. His vivid imagination kept returning to only one explanation, which seemed the most likely and most impossible at the same time – Castiel and Dean having a baby together.

“Sam, please…” Mary insisted.

“Ok, alright, what did the reaper say?” Sam tried his best to calm down.

“The ghosts of the people who are killed run away somewhere, the reaper had no idea where. I think that the one killing them, is binding their spirits somehow and sending them back to kill more people.”

The explanation seemed more or less reasonable, but there was still was something not quite right about the situation. “Ok, let’s imagine it’s really like you say. The one killing them must have gotten a first ghost from somewhere. Plus some of the bodies don’t look like they were killed by a ghost.”

“Yeah, they look like they were killed by a big dog” Mary confirmed. “The Rottweiler I saw around the building could do it.”

With this she showed Sam a piece of paper. The hunter took the paper from Mary’s hands examining it. It was a small commercial add which described ‘the best veterinary clinic in the city’.

“You remember I told that I saw a ghost in the hospital?” Mary reminded. “He pointed on the stand with different ads. This one was among them.”

“All right, let’s check it out.” Sam agreed.

***

Dean, Garth and Andrew moved to the office room. Andrew withdrew a bottle of liquor from a bar and offered it to the two hunters. Dean accepted it with pleasure while Garth only shook his head refusing the alcohol and explaining that it affected his brilliant thinking.

“So, what brought you to our humble business?” Dean inquired as they settled down in the office.

“No, you didn’t understand me right,” Andrew shook his head. “I’m not a hunter, I’m just a person who knows too much.” He sighed.

“Too much?” Dean inquired.

“Yeah, I wish I didn’t know about all of this things lurking in the dark.” The host explained. “I think I could sleep better.” He said sipping slowly from his glass.

Dean followed his example, humming at the taste of the brandy. He usually didn’t like this particular drink, preferring whiskey, but he had to admit that this one was very good, with a soft after taste and a gentle warming sensation in his stomach as he drank it. It was probably expensive as shit too.

“But anyway, how did you find out about everything?” Dean asked.

“You see, my granddad used to hunt. He thought to pass the tradition on to my dad.” Andrew clarified. “But my dad decided to leave the profession when I was born.”

“That’s understandable” Dean agreed.

“Anyway, you guys!” Andrew smiled warmly. “I still have no idea how did you manage to find out so fast.”

“The crackers!” Garth explained pointing his fingers at the host, “The extra-salty crackers betrayed you!”

Dean looked at his temporary partner. Of course he did manage to find out pretty fast, but it didn’t change the fact that Garth was an idiot. Nice guy, but an idiot.

“Nice trick, by the way, offering your guests crackers sprinkled with rock salt and tea with holy water.” Dean laughed.

“And the silver spoons? How good is that?” Andrew laughed back.

With every second passed Dean was starting to like Andrew more and more. Even with the all the differences between them, the hunter felt they could become friends.

The phone in Dean’s pocket started to ring. The hunter excused himself and accepted the call. It was Sam.

“Hey Sammy, figure anything out?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, long story short, Mary and I went to the ASC headquarters, there was another ghost. And a huge dog.”

“Huge dog? You mean like a…” Dean didn’t finish the sentence. It was still difficult for him to name the creature that had once killed him.

“No, not a hellhound. It was a Rottweiler. We found out that this exact dog was hanging around every crime scene.”

“So, we need to find out whose dog it is?”

“Already did. Went to a vet clinic to see if they could recognize the dog. They said that there were three dogs like that adopted from their center during the last several months. Are you still at Moor’s place?”

“Yeah” Dean nodded even if Sam couldn’t see him.

“Ask him if the name Peter Rodney sounds familiar.”

Dean looked up and Andrew, “You know anything about Peter Rodney?” He asked.

At first Andrew shook his head, but suddenly his eyes went wide in recognition. “I… used to work with him…” He said. “More than ten years ago, he was one of my colleagues. We worked together on the Alpheon network before our superiors decided that the project could reach nothing but a dead end and laid our whole team off.”

Dean repeated everything to his brother.

“Ask him what happened with other members of the team?”

“I’m not an intercom!” Dean protested. “Wait, I’m gonna turn on the speakers.”

“Wait, how am I suppose to talk about… you know what!”

“That is the awesome part Sammy!” Dean smiled wide turning the speakers on. “Turned out Andrew is one of us! Isn’t that cool?”

“Yeah, well, so what happened with the people who worked on the project all those years ago?”

“Not sure.” Andrew admitted. “Some of them joined my company. Some found other jobs. Plus not all of the dead and missing people were among those who worked on the project from the beginning. I think I would see a pattern in this case.”

“Anyway, I dropped Mary at the motel and now I’m driving to this guy’s house. I’m going to text you the address, meet me there.” Sam concluded before hanging up.

Dean picked his phone from the table and looked at Garth. “Let’s go, work is waiting”

“I’m going too.” Andrew suddenly announced.

Dean looked at his new friend with surprise. “Are you sure?” He asked. “You have two kids, you know…”

“I know. And it’s the best thing I can do to protect them right now.” He sighed.

***

Christine exited the office building hurrying to her car. It had already started to get dark when she finished calming down her workers and talking to the police. She had no idea what was going on with her and her husband’s company, but she was afraid it could damage their reputation so bad that they won’t be able to recover from this one.

Christine signed opening the car door. She was about to get in, as she heard a growl next to her. Her heart leaped in her chest, making her feel uneasy. She got inside the vehicle locking the door and clenched her hands into the steering wheel.

“It’s ok, Christie,” she whispered to herself, “just a terrible day at work and vivid imagination, nothing more.”

She started the engine trying to calm her breath down and started to exit the parking lot.

“You see, its fine. Now I’m perfectly safe in the car on my way back to home.” She said as she turned to the highway.”

The air in the car suddenly became cold making Christine exhale a puff of steam. She reached to the air conditioner to switch it off, then reached to fix the rear view mirror inside the car. A light from a spotlight she had passed glanced from the surface of the mirror silhouetting a shape sitting in the back seat.

Christine screamed. The shriek of the brakes was the last thing she remembered before everything suddenly turned black.

***

When Dean, Andrew and Garth reached the house of Peter Rodney it was already dark. The house itself seemed shabby and abandoned like no-one had lived there for years. The front yard was overgrown with weeds of different sizes and shapes which together were high enough to hide even Sam if he would decide to sit in the middle.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Dean asked his brother who waited for him a quarter of a block away watching the place from a distance.

“Yeah, I saw the guy leaving half an hour ago.” Sam replied. “It should be empty now.”

Dean returned to the Impala to grab his duffel filled with his already prepared arsenal for tonight. “You sure you want to do it?” He asked Andrew who now stood next to him looking at the house.

“Yeah.” Andrew nodded.

“Ok then, you’ll need this.” Dean explained passing a salt loaded shotgun. “Can you use it?”

“I’ll figure it out.” Andrew said.

The house from inside looked even shabbier. It smelled like mold and dirty clothes and the whole floor was covered with trash, most of which consisted of broken glass which was making their every step echo and crunch through the house ten times louder than it would have been otherwise.

Other than the unsanitary conditions and the thick layer of dust covering everything, the house didn’t look suspicious. There weren’t any weird symbols on the walls, or any ghosts flying around, but when Dean extracted the EMF meter from his pocket it showed him different. The little device was practically screaming about ghost activities.

“I think, it’s our client,” noted Garth, “we only need to find out how this guy is bonding all of the ghosts.”

“I don’t think it’s gonna be difficult” Sam huffed. “If you were going to do magicky things, where would you do it?”

“In the basement!” Replied Dean without even thinking.

“Yeah, and you would probably lock it down the best you could.” Agreed Sam flashing on the small basement door with a large barn lock.

Dean moved closer to the door to take a better look, but stepped on something sharp and pointy. The thing pierced through his shoe getting to the skin. “Son of a bitch!” Dean swore under his breath as he started to jump on one leg, but tripped on something and started to fall. Fortunately for the hunter Andrew was standing right behind him. He caught Dean in the middle of the fall helping him back up.

“This place makes me want to clean up around Bobby’s” Dean groaned. “I’m fine!” he then said to Sam who was on his way to check on his older brother. “Don’t move!”

Dean turned his flashlight to the floor illuminating two rows of actual metal caltrops spread around the basement door. “It’s like he knew someone would come.” Sam commented looking at the caltrops.

“Let’s just hope that he is simply paranoid?” The older Winchester proposed.

Dean stepped around the spiky metal bits moving closer to the basement door. There he pried the lock up with a crowbar, tearing it from the door.

The basement itself was absolutely different from the rest of the house. The place was spotless clean, and looked like Peter lived in the basement and kept the house itself dirty on purpose, so no-one would suspect something valuable was kept in here.

In one corner of the basement there was a bed and a small wardrobe. On another side was a small metal sink and something mildly resembling a shower stall. But what attracted Dean’s attention the most was the altar in the very middle of the basement. It was a small table with five black candles placed in a circle. Two red lines were drawn underneath each of the candles crossing each other and creating a drawing of a pentacle with one of the edges pointed directly towards the person who would look at it.

“Not much for protection.” Garth pointed out.

On the table there was also a book and photos of all of the dead and missing people from Andrew’s company. The pictures were set in a pattern, starting from the first victim to the latest one and were covered in red substance Dean recognized as blood.

“Those are separate” Sam said pointing his flash light on a pile of other pictures.

“They are probably people who he hasn’t killed yet.” Dean assumed. “Hey Andrew, look, are those people who work in the ASC?”

Andrew moved closer to the altar looking at the picture. Suddenly the flash light he was holding fell to the floor.

“Is everything all right?” Dean asked.

“Chistie… no…” He whispered reaching to one of the images in the center of the altar.

“Shit!” Dean heard his brother swearing.

The hunter looked at the image and saw it portraying a woman whom he’s never seen in person, but recognized as he seen the same exact photo in the Andrew’s file when he was studying it before interrogating him. It was Christine Moor, Andrew’s wife.

“Hey, it’s not a fact that she is dead, he might not have had time to do anything to her.” Dean reassured, even though he doubted his own words. The image had been covered in fresh red drops of blood, in the same way the pictures of all the other dead people were.

Andrew groaned in despair. He reached for the altar, grabbing one of the table sides it was built on, but before he had a chance to knock it down, a wave of invisible force pushed Andrew to the other side of the room.

“Damn it!” Dean groaned, but the next moment the same invisible force pushed him backwards.

“I’ve been expecting you!” A new voice echoed through the basement.

“Yeah, really?” Dean smirked standing up. “And what is that with you evil assholes and sending people flying via the invisible force express, by the way? I need to admit I’m pretty tired of that trick!”

“I have no idea who you are, but I can satisfy your wish of having new life experiences.” Peter smiled emerging from a shadow. He was a small skinny guy with graying hair and glasses. In his left hand he held a crystal ball, rubbing its smooth surface with the right one.

“Sorry, if I were to have new life experiences, it would definitely not be with your sorry ass.” Dean stood up from the floor and made an attempt to move towards Peter. Suddenly his lungs started to feel like they were on fire. Dean coughed feeling the taste of his own blood in his mouth. “Not a new trick either” He smiled trying not to pay attention to how much it hurt to talk.

Sam rushed Peter from the other side, but he just waved his hand and a ghost woman appeared out of nowhere attacking Sam and sending him to the ground. Garth tried to move from the floor but the second ghost came at him.

“Andrew!” Peter exclaimed. “Long time no see! How is your wife? Oh right, I killed her!”

Andrew stood from the floor picking up a crowbar. Dean dropped down and rushed towards Peter. A third ghost appearing in his way made Andrew stop still mid-swing. It was Christine.

“Christie…” Andrew whispered dropping the crowbar.

The situation looked deadly. Sam and Garth were trying to hold back two ghosts who were attacking them, while Dean was slowly bleeding out, not even able to move. He had already started to think about calling Castiel, even though he hated to ask the angel for help on every single hunt like he was twelve years old and couldn’t protect himself, but the ghost of Christine suddenly turned on her own master. The shackles around her wrists and ankles started to burn making her scream in pain.

“You cannot…” Peter whispered. “You’re bound to me!” He yelled squeezing his crystal ball and making Christine’s ghost burn as if someone had set her remains on fire.

The pain in Dean’s chest faded for a moment. It was all disruption the hunter needed, so he gathered all his strength and jumped on the altar, flipping the table over.

The ball in Peter’s hands cracked and the shackles around the ghost attacking Sam and Garth disappeared. Both of the ghosts rose leaving their targets alone and turned on Peter.

Suddenly the room was filled with the ghosts. They seemed to be emerging from every wall in the basement flying to their offender who had no longer had any control over them.

Peter tried to yell, to run, but it was useless. Soon the whole room lit up like a fire, making Dean shut his eyes, trying to shield himself behind the table.

When the hunter finally managed to open his eyes he saw nothing but a pile of dust in the place where Peter had stood.

***

“Looks like it’s finally over.” Garth sighed, leaning on the hood of his old Ford.

The five of them were standing in the motel parking lot before the room the Winchesters occupied. It was almost ten in the evening and the place was nearly empty. From time to time a lonely car would pass the road next to the motel, but other than that it was quiet.

“Yeah, Thanks man, have no idea what would have done without you” Sam smiled awkwardly.

“Not a problem” Garth nodded. “As they say, always judge a book by its cover!”

Sam raised an eyebrow because according to that statement they still should have considered him absolutely useless. “Actually it’s ‘don’t judge a book by its cover,’ Garth.” He smiled awkwardly.

“Is it?” Garth blinked. “Oh well, doesn’t matter.”

Garth gave the Winchester brother the last hug, then moved to Mary kissing her knuckles yet again. “I hope I will see you again one day, beautiful.” He grinned.

“Yeah, I don’t doubt it.” Mary nodded with a soft chuckle.

Garth climbed into his car, waving goodbye to everyone, exited the parking lot, disappearing behind the turn of the road.

“I hope we will never work with him again” exhaled Dean still smiling just in case the guy forgot something in the room and was going to return any second.

“Agree.” Confirmed Sam.

“And what about you, are you going to be ok?” Dean turned his attention to Andrew who was standing next to them, looking a little startled.

“Yeah, I will!” Andrew replied looking somewhere behind Dean.

“You sure? You don’t look that good.”

“Cause I don’t feel that great. You know. A lot of things happened today, and honestly, I don’t know what to do now.”

“You still have kids, you know… they going to need you.” Dean sighed.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Andrew agreed. “And I think I should go home now, think about how to live the rest of my life.”

Andrew turned to open his own car, but froze in one place, his breath caught in his chest.

“Andrew?” Dean called out.

“I’m fine. Sorry.” He mumbled in reply, then hurried to get in his car and drove away.

“Looks like we should move too.” Sam proposed. “Will drive for several hours and get a room in some other motel on the road.”

Dean only nodded in response, limping to the Impala as his feet still hurt after stepping on a caltrop.

***

Dean was fast asleep on the back seat of the Impala snuggled with a spare blanket they stole in one of the numerous motels they have ever been standing in. As usually hunter tried to play it cool, but in the end it turned out he was beaten up more than anyone else. Sam was driving the car with one hand on a searing wheel and a plastic cup of coffee in the other, while Mary was sitting on the passenger seat looking through the picture of victims. After several attempts, she finally managed to suppress her gag reflexes looking at the bodies.

“What are you doing?” Sam inquired.

“Something isn’t right” Mary explained.

“Huh?”

“You see, we did figure out that the torn bodies were the work of the Rottweiler, right? But there is something we didn’t think about. The first person to disappear and found dead was in fact torn up by a dog. The next one after him was killed by a ghost. So if Peter had already had a chance to send a human ghost, why would he return back to sending a dog?”

“Don’t know, just wanted to do things faster.” Sam proposed.

“Not really.” Mary disagreed, “the disappearances have been happening in a pattern.  One person a day. But each time a torn person appeared, it was breaking the pattern bringing it to two people a day. Plus, did you see this dog in his house? Or it actually attacking anyone?” She signed. “Wait a moment… this guy. He wasn’t even working for ASC. It says in the file, that he was a respectable layer who won his first case in April of 2001.” She paused, “Sam… is it 2011 right now?”

Sam blinked several times as he was trying to comprehend what Mary was saying. “Oh shit!” He sworn and started to turn the car.

Dean jumped from his sleeping spot, holding a knife in his hands “What the hell, Sammy?” He asked.

“We made a mistake of letting Andrew go!” Sam explained.

“Why?” Asked Dean still trying to fully wake up.

“Remember how startled he looked the whole day? Like something was after him.”

“Damn!” exclaimed Mary. “Andrew… he built his company in 2001. It was… ten years ago!”

 


End file.
